Bill Taylor, left, Democratic candidate for Tennessee’s 3rd Congressional District, talks with Cynthia Coleman before his speech at the Greater Chattanooga Democratic Women’s Club on Tuesday at the IBEW #75 hall on
Volunteer Drive.A Democrat vying for U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann’s job on Tuesday suggested hospice care as a way to curtail Medicare spending, using his deceased mother’s experience with breast cancer as an example.
Wrapping up a speech to the Greater Chattanooga Democratic Women’s Club, Bill Taylor recounted his mother’s various rounds of chemotherapy and radiation before praising her decision to sign up for hospice.
“She was home the whole time, and she died in early August of 2000 with all the family around her and on her own terms,” Taylor said. “Now for our discussion tonight, she also saved the Medicare program a boatload of money.”
A pause hung in the air as Taylor waited for applause and about 25 Women’s Club members simply waited.
“I’m not advocating that the government get involved in that because that decision is too personal for the federal government to tell you what to do,” he said. “But it’s something that … society needs to start looking at to save [Medicare] and to make life better for ourselves.”