Friday, March 19, 2010
By ROBERT WANG
robert.wang@cantonrep.com
CANTON
Kay Duplin, who opposes the health-care bill in Congress, tried repeatedly during three days this week to call the Canton office of U.S. Rep. John Boccieri to tell him to vote “no.”
The 72-year-old Louisville woman, who was in Florida, kept getting a busy signal. The voice-mail boxes were full.
After she pressed the redial button for an hour Wednesday afternoon, one of Boccieri’s staffers finally picked up the phone.
“I’m tenacious, and I want to do the right thing, and I want my voice to be heard,” said Duplin, who opposes the bill’s requirement that nearly everyone have health insurance and believes the bill would allow the federal funding of abortions and a “big government takeover.”
Duplin is one of the thousands of people nationwide who was seeking to sway Boccieri of Alliance, D-16th, on his upcoming health-care-bill vote, which could come as early as Sunday. Boccieri’s office said Thursday night that he will announce his decision on how he will vote at 10:40 this morning in a press conference at the U.S. Capitol.
To get final passage, backers need to persuade many of the Democrats who voted “no” in November to change their votes to “yes.”