St. Cloud Times: Bachmann turns the spotlight on disorder

Aug 2, 2009

As a mother of five children and foster parent to 23, Rep. Michele Bachmann says she was easily moved by the plight of a New Jersey couple who sought her help in bringing attention to a brain disorder afflicting children like their 4-year-old son.

And, she said, she was touched further by the letter from another New Jersey mom whose 9-year-old daughter suffers from the same affliction: hydrocephalus, or water on the brain.

After hearing the stories of Michael and Kimberly Illions of Woodbridge, N.J., and Michelle Janson of Jackson, N.J., Bachmann drew up a proposal in April to designate September as National Hydrocephalus Awareness Month. The House last week approved it.

Bachmann, R-St. Cloud, said Friday that she hopes public awareness will lead to more research to develop modern treatment techniques and ultimately a cure.

“We’re extremely grateful for the first step,” she said, referring to the House adoption of her resolution.

Hydrocephalus is a neurological condition that causes an abnormal buildup of fluids in the brain. It affects about one out of every 500 newborns. The most common treatment involves inserting a shunt to allow the fluid to flow from the brain, but the treatment can cause fatal complications.

“I wasn’t aware at the time how common the condition was,” Bachmann said, referring to when she first met the Illionses, founders of the Pediatric Hydrocephalus Foundation. “I was amazed when I learned of the limited number of treatments.”

Bachmann met the Illionses through her chief of staff, Michelle Marston, who had met Michael Illions while she worked for Rep. Scott Garrett of New Jersey.

“We were just looking to raise awareness,” Kimberly Illions said. “When you tell people your son has hydrocephalus, they go, ‘What’s that?’”

She said her son, Cole, has undergone 11 brain surgeries, physical therapy and speech therapy since his birth in 2005.

Kimberly Illions said that in introducing the resolution, a measure that gained 89 co-sponsors, Bachmann “went above and beyond what anybody could expect from her.”

Bachmann said she has “a heart for children at risk,” because several of her foster children had disabilities, though none had hydrocephalus.

It is among the issues she will focus on, she said, in her district during the House’s August recess. Another will be health care, an issue that has dominated public attention in Washington this summer as Democratic leaders tried to push through reform legislation before the break, as President Barack Obama had requested.

But the bill got bogged down in intraparty squabbling, as a group of fiscally conservative Democrats objected to the estimated $1 trillion price tag. Both the House and Senate now are looking at a vote in September.

Bachmann likely will vote against it. She said she objects to the cost and a provision that would allow the government to offer a public plan to compete with private health insurance companies.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced Friday that Bachmann is among more than two dozen Republicans the group has targeted in a monthlong advertising and grassroots lobbying campaign focusing on health care. The DCCC accuses the Republicans of protecting health insurance companies.

Bachmann said she wants “a measure that would truly bring down the cost of health care, which I don’t think this bill will do.”

In January, Bachmann proposed her own reform legislation, a measure that would allow individuals to claim health care expenses as tax deductions. The bill is unlikely to make it out of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Bachmann said her goal is to make health care insurance completely portable and to “decouple” health care coverage from employers.

“I want to empower people,” she said.