Thank God rich people get sick too
But Mr. Johnson also clearly has his own agenda. Staff members on Capitol Hill credit him with playing a pivotal role in 2002 in pushing members of Congress, including Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, to allocate $750 million over five years for juvenile diabetes research. Mr. Johnson’s oldest daughter, Casey, has Type 1 diabetes, and he has given millions to the search for a cure.
“We sat down and talked a couple times,” said Mr. Hastert, who added that he and Mr. Johnson had bonded over football. “He made a very good case that by investing U.S. dollars, we could actually save money.”
Mr. Johnson, who has another daughter with the autoimmune disease lupus and raised millions for that cause, also met with President Bush in the White House to push for embryonic stem-cell research, a meeting Mr. Johnson believes might have helped Mr. Bush to compromise in his policy and still allow federal financing for research on existing stem-cell lines.
