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Democratic House Candidate's Wife's OBGYN Practice Doesn't Accept Medicaid

Eric Holder's wife practices at same Medicaid-shunning clinic

John Foust
John Foust / Fairfaxcounty.gov
July 7, 2014

The OBGYN practice of Marilyn Jerome, the wife of Democratic congressional candidate John Foust, does not accept Medicaid, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Foust has repeatedly attacked his Republican opponent Barbara Comstock for opposing the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act in his campaign to represent Virginia’s 10th district.

Dr. Marilyn C. Jerome practices obstetrics and gynecology at Foxhall OB/GYN Associates in Spring Valley, an upper northwest suburb of Washington, D.C. Jerome has practiced there since 1982. Foxhall is also where Attorney General Eric Holder’s wife Dr. Sharon D. Malone practices.

No physician or staff at Foxhall is listed as a Medicaid provider on the D.C. Department of Health Care Finance’s database. A phone call to the office confirmed that the practice does not accept Medicaid.

However, John Foust, a Fairfax County supervisor, has made Medicaid a signature issue of his campaign against Comstock.

"Barbara Comstock would stop Virginians from receiving our own tax dollars back from Washington for the sake of her right-wing agenda—and having balanced seven budgets in Fairfax, I can tell you that just doesn’t make any fiscal sense," Foust said last month. "But Comstock’s decision to once again go along with extremists in Richmond has real consequences for us: increasing healthcare costs for everyone, costing our state more money, and jeopardizing support for important priorities that we care about like education."

Foust has said Obamacare is "clearly a good thing" and that not expanding Medicaid to rural hospitals "could be devastating."

He has also enlisted his wife to campaign on his behalf, with Jerome using her status as an OBGYN to lead "Women for Foust."

"As an OBGYN, it is essential to me that any politician I vote for know that a politician’s place is not between a woman and her doctor," Jerome says on her husband’s campaign website. "Lucky for me, I married a good one. I married a man who would never try to interfere with that relationship and make a woman’s choice for her."

She also authored a post for Foxhall in support of the Affordable Care Act and expanding Medicaid, noting that the government program helps low-income women, though Medicaid is not accepted at her office.

"Most doctors and patients do not understand the implications of the Affordable Care Act," she wrote in March. "The American College of OB-Gyn provided some information that is very useful."

"Did you know that 20 [percent] of women between the ages of 18-64 in the U.S. do not have health insurance? The ACA will require nearly all Americans to carry health insurance or pay a fine," Jerome continues. "The ACA will give the states the option of expanding Medicaid to cover low income women, even if they are not pregnant."

"There are 18.6 million women who do not have health insurance now and are eligible for this coverage, and another 4.6 million low-income women who could benefit from Medicaid expansion," she wrote.

Requests for comment from the Foust campaign were not returned.