Congressman Mike Kelly Deceives Constituent for Political Gain

In 2013, Congressman Mike Kelly read a letter on the House floor about a young woman who worked part time, had a minimum-wage job and had her insurance canceled. "She is going to be forced to choose a plan that costs triple what she is paying now ($70 to $210)."

First, the young woman isn't being forced to purchase health insurance. With states that do not expand Medicaid, like PA chose not to under Gov. Tom Corbett, the people that do not qualify for tax credits are exempted from being penalized it they do not purchasing health insurance (see number 12 in the link).  Secondly, Kelly did not mention that the woman would have been eligible for Medicaid if Corbett had expanded the program.  Kelly's main concern was not that this woman's insurance was increasing, since he did not tell her the truth that her insurance would have decreased from $70 down to, most likely, $0 if Medicaid was expanded as the ACA was designed to accomplish. Therefore, Kelly was supporting the idea to increase her insurance to $210 by not fighting Corbett to expand Medicaid while appearing to help her.

Also, Kelly could have introduced legislation to incentivize states to expand Medicaid and support a minimum-wage increase since he acknowledges that a low-wage is a problem for her. However, he does not support giving her a chance to earn more money as he voted against raising the minimum wage. Instead, he exploited her situation on the House floor so he could attack the Affordable Care Act for his own political gain.

Back in November of 2014 Kelly held a telecall to inform seniors about open enrollment for Medicare, but refused to inform his constituents about the ACA's open enrollment from Nov. 15 to Feb. 15, which may result in people going without health care. Furthermore, on Kelly's website, he lists numerous services that taxpayers can take advantage of, such as federal loans and grants, student financial aid, information on Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, etc. However, there is not any information on how constituents can learn about the ACA, how it factually benefits them, and how to receive federal tax credits (subsidies) to pay for health insurance. Obviously, Kelly is picking and choosing which federal money he wants his constituents to take advantage of and what information he wants to pass on to his constituents. So when his page claims, "Congressman Kelly's office works to connect constituents with resources available to them as taxpayers," this sentiment is not conveyed in his remarks on the House floor or what he omits on his website. Thus, when he read the young woman's letter on the House floor and said, "[The people are] tired of the talk that comes out of Washington. They want to have people start representing them. That's what we're here to do -- both sides of the aisle, ladies and gentlemen, bother (sic) sides of the aisle," his words are nothing but political theater and something that he does not abide by himself.

If Kelly truly believes what he said he would have told the young woman I talked about above the truth instead of misinforming her and using her for his own political agenda.  Kelly's goal of destroying the ACA is putting all of his constituents at risk by preventing them from gaining affordable health care while presenting himself as fighting for us. This is not what most people, acting in good faith, would call a representative. His political theater simply created the environment where many people will fail to gain access to health care, which includes not receiving cancer treatments that many of his constituents desperately need to survive.  Deceiving people for one's political gain is not how to represent them and an approach that we should all be tired of hearing, but all too often hear from Congressman Mike Kelly.