According to Adam Weinstein in Newsweek, Joe Wilson's campaign site headline is:
JOE WILSON IS PASSIONATE ABOUT STOPPING GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH CARE!
(I'd link to his site directly, but good luck. It's swamped and unavailable.) But of course he's against government run health care. Except for the fact that the families of Wilson's 4 kids are all on TriCare - the government-run health insurance for military and their families. In Joe's own words:
"I am grateful to have four sons now serving in the military, and I know that their families appreciate the availability of TRICARE," he said.
Let me make this clear: While Joe Wilson fights against government health insurance for all of us, he praises the government health insurance HIS family uses. Not only that, he voted against extending the benefits to other National Guard members ... even though he was one and already enjoys the benefits himself.
Again, from Adam Weinstein's must read article:
As a retired Army National Guard colonel, Wilson gets a lot of benefits [...] And with four sons in the armed services, the entire Wilson brood has enjoyed multiple generations of free military medical coverage, known as TRICARE.
[...]
What does that mean? Nothing─except that Joe Wilson was against government-run health care before he was for it. And now he's against it again. Just not when it comes to his own flesh and blood.
I dunno. Maybe Joe doesn't know the military is part of government? Or perhaps he's just breathtakingly hypocritical. The way he votes on veteran's benefits tends to point toward the latter.
And it's not just that Joe Wilson's family can have government health care and you can't. It's that his military family can have TriCare and your military family can't. When Joe Wilson had a chance to vote to extend TriCare to reservists and National Guard members, he voted against it. From Indigo Journal:
Wilson Opposed Expanding TRICARE to Thousands of National Guard & Reserve Volunteers: In 2005, Wilson voted against expanding access to the military's TRICARE health insurance program to thousands of reservist and National Guard members. Despite the fact that more than 433,000 members of the National Guard and Reserves had been called up for active from 2003-2005, not all Guardsmen and Reservists had access to TRICARE. A 2003 report by the General Accounting Office showed that 20 percent of all Reservists did not have health insurance, and 40 percent of Reservists aged 19 to 35 lacked health coverage. The proposal, sponsored by Rep. Taylor of Mississippi, would have expanded program to provide access to TRICARE to most members of the Guard and Reserve and their families for a low fee. The motion failed 211-218. (House Vote 221, HR 1815, May 25, 2005; Leadership Document, "DOD Authorization Previous Question on Rule")
There is only way to describe him: hypocrite.