Merkley Slams Wehby For Alleged Plagiarism

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Thursday, September 18, 2014

Shelby Sebens, GoLocalPDX Reporter

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Monica Wehby, a doctor, is taking heat for allegedly plagiarizing her health plan for Oregonians. 

Screen shots of a press release on Wehby’s health plan provided to GoLocalPDX by the campaign for her opponent, U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley reveal that Wehby’s health-plan talking points mirror, sometimes word for word, points in a health-reform survey by a group backed by Karl Rove. 

"The entire basis for Monica Wehby's campaign is her so-called expertise on health issues, but today Oregonians are learning that Wehby plagiarized her entire health care plan directly from Karl Rove, the hatchet man behind George W. Bush," Merkley campaign spokeswoman Lindsey O'Brien said in an email. 

The Merkley campaign pounced on the plagiarism after BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski broke the story claiming Wehby plagiarized her health plan from the Crossroads USA Survey. 

Wehby’s campaign denied the claim.  "The suggestion that a pediatric neurosurgeon needs to copy a health care plan from American Crossroads is absurd," Dean Petrone, Wehby's communications director, said in an email. "She has nearly 30 years of experience in the health care industry and has used that to formulate proposals that most Americans agree are needed to replace the broken system championed by Jeff Merkley."

However, her campaign did not respond when asked why the issues page of the campaign website is down, and if the campaign would send a copy of the health plan.

But a look at Wehby’s press release for her health plan shows similarities between the survey and her plan. The points don’t include any attribution or reference to the survey. 

For example, the survey states: “Expand HSAs that allow people to save money tax-free for use on out-of-pocket medical expenses.” 

Under the heading "Monica's Fixes", Wehby’s press release states:  “Expand Health Savings Accounts, or HSAs, which allow people to save money tax-free for use on out-of pocket expenses.” 

The Merkley campaign also accuses Wehby of having unoriginal content on other parts of her platform.  

"Monica Wehby copied Mitt Romney's tax plan, plagiarized Karl Rove's health care plan and lifted the rest of her anti-middle class agenda straight from the oil billionaire Koch brothers,” O’Brien said. “There is no question that in the Senate Monica Wehby would be a rubber stamp, voting with Senate Republicans and the billionaire Koch brothers against Oregon's priorities." 

Recent polls give Merkley a 13 percent lead over Wehby, with less than two months until the November 4 election. 

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