Healthy Bobby Rush to Obama: Make health care a bigger focus

I'm hearing about this story for the first time on Channel 2, but until I find the different elements of this story from their website, here's an excerpt from the Sun-Times:

Before cheering supporters, Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) today proclaimed himself cancer-free and challenged Sen. Barack Obama to make Universal Health Care a bigger focus of his presidential campaign.

His speaking voice heavily-slurred, Rush said this “life-transforming experience” beating salivary gland cancer has made him “an aggressive advocate for health care for all Americans.”

In an atrium at the University of Chicago Hospitals, Rush folded his hands and raised his head to look toward the heavens after thanking God for his recovery. The South Side congressman, who has started his own church in Englewood, said the experience also brought him even closer to God.

Rush said neither candidate for president is talking enough about the need for universal health care. Asked what message he would send Obama, Rush said, “He should be talking about National Health Care as one of his priorities. I'm calling on him to do that.”

Rush soundly defeated Obama when Obama challenged him for congress in 2000 but the two have since become allies. Rush is a former Black Panther and Chicago alderman.

Rush said he was “disappointed” earlier this year when amid his battle with cancer he read an item in Michael Sneed's column in the Sun-Times saying Ald. Sandi Jackson (7th), the wife of Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill), was being touted as his replacement.

“I've known Jesse Jackson Jr. since he was just a toddler,” Rush said. "It was a real disappointment to me. We soon got beyond it.”

Both Jacksons said at the time and Rep. Jackson said again Monday that neither he nor his wife ever touted her as Rush's replacement.

It's great to hear that Congressman Rush is free of his cancer and hopefully he'll get healthier.