Letter: Health champion?

To the editor:

This news caught my eye. U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins was presented a National Council Behavioral Health Champion Award. This award should look good next to the award she surely gets from the National Rifle Association for her voting record on guns.

The award was for championing of the Mental Health First Aid Act. Who is the NCBH? It’s a member organization that is the voice of America’s mental health. Our local Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center must be a member because CEO David Johnson endorsed the award. According to its website, the NCBH mission “is to advance our members’ ability to deliver integrated health care.” I guess the Affordable Care Act (which Rep. Jenkins has voted 60 times to repeal) is not part of integrated health care.

I understand how the lobbying arm of this group gives an award to Congress as a favor for voting for mental health funds. What I don’t understand is how the CEO of Bert Nash can be part of this, knowing Jenkins’ voting record on health care, guns, food stamps, minimum wage laws and many other issues that make for a sane society.

This is a prime example of money in politics blinding our leadership. Hence, Rep. Jenkins ends up with a big picture in our local paper labeled as a “champion of health.”