Gus Bilirakis finally makes American News

Oops! My bad. I meant to say "Greek" news and it looks like he was just tagging along with the biggie boys.

AT THE CONGRESS
Kyprianou who arrived in the US capital on Wednesday, met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, President of the House Committee of Foreign Affairs, Joe Biden, Senator Robert Menendez and Congresswoman Olympia Snowe. All members of congress expressed interest over the latest Cyprus developments and offered to help in efforts to solve the Cyprus problem.

He also met with eleven members of the Hellenic Caucus, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affaires Committee Ileana Ros Lehtinen and European Affaires Subcommittee Chairman Robert Wexler.

Congressman Frank Pallone, a member of the Hellenic Caucus said the US should persuade Turkey to help the Cyprus procedure. Amongst the Hellenic Caucus members were John Sarbanes, Patrick Kennedy, Gus Bilirakis, Donald Payne, Shelley Berkley etc.

http://www.greeknewsonline.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8383

Bilirakis aide's daughter gets government healthcare

Susan S made a trip to see Gus Bilirakis' aide today,Wed Oct 03, 2007:

Without even seeing that he was proving my point, an aide to Congressman Gus Bilirakis told me this morning that his own daughter gets government healthcare.

Here's the scenario: Democracy for America and the Democrats in NW Hillsborough County, FL, have collected healthcare stories from citizens around the state which we have delivered to our Congressional representatives. The delivery to Rep. Bilirakis' (FL-9) office was delayed because we wanted to give them to an aide during his monthly "Community Outreach" event. This morning, I took the stack of stories to the library where the event was held. The 40-something male aide was browsing the bookshelves when I got there.

We went into the private meeting room and I gave him the stories and asked that the Congressman sign on as a co-sponsor of HR 676 for single-payer healthcare. I also asked him to pass along the word that we would like to see Congressman Bilirakis vote to override George Bush's expected veto of the S-CHIP bill.

He then told me that the Congressman was against the bill because it would be giving healthcare to children whose families earn more than $80,000 dollars per year. I told him that had been taken out of the bill, but that it didn't matter, because ALL children, in fact, all Americans, deserve healthcare.

He then said "...children in this country are not denied healthcare. My own daughter, who is in her twenties and makes minimum wage, gets her healthcare at the County Health Department. So no one has to go without healthcare in this country."

My response was, "So your daughter gets government healthcare." He was a bit flustered.

"No," he said. "She goes to the health department and gets care."

"But that's government healthcare, paid for by the taxpayers."

I'm not sure if it ever registered that his daughter is taking advantage of a program exactly like S-CHIP. (Would you call that hypocrisy or stupidity?)

We talked in circles for awhile longer, but he was having none of it. There's no way that Gus Bilirakis (legacy congressman) will ever override this veto, despite the fact that his own aide's family can't afford healthcare. He follows White House marching orders and in the words of this morning's St. Pete Times editorial, "this is about ideology and politics, not money."

Crossposted on dailykos: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/3/121949/040