Direct And Unfiltered: John Dingell’s Popular Health Care Tweets
Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) wields the gavel he used when he chaired the committee that passed Medicare legislation in 1965. He showed off the gavel at an Oct. 29, 2009 event to unveil the Affordable Health Care Act. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Former Rep. John Dingell, who died Thursday, was known for his strong opinions during his nearly 60 years in Congress. And even after leaving Congress, he continued to express his views through a lively, partisan — and sometimes earthy — Twitter account that attracted a keen following of more than 265,000 supporters and critics.
Although his posts dealt with a wide variety of issues, Dingell’s longtime devotion to improving health care was a frequent topic.
Here is a small sampling of his musings on health care. Click on the examples to see the full post and retweets.
From his many years championing health reform in Congress, Dingell could offer a unique historical perspective of the efforts to expand coverage, a quest he said would make “my pop” proud.
https://twitter.com/JohnDingell/status/844325501086961664
Dingell took great pride in the passage of the Affordable Care Act. He acknowledged it wasn’t perfect. “The only perfect law was handed to Moses on stone tablets by God himself.”
https://twitter.com/JohnDingell/status/844360875372920832
He had no patience with Republican lawmakers’ efforts to repeal and replace the ACA.
https://twitter.com/JohnDingell/status/838981131735339008
And he didn’t take kindly to efforts by “knaves and know-nothings” in recent years to add work requirements to Medicaid programs.
https://twitter.com/JohnDingell/status/1029502482748256256
He clearly enjoyed jousting with friends and foes on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/JohnDingell/status/571791239638597632
