WASHINGTON (JTA) — A Florida congressman says he regrets using the term "holocaust" to describe the state of the U.S. health care system.
"I am Jewish and have relatives who died in the Holocaust," U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, a Democrat, wrote in a letter last Friday to the Florida regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, Andrew Rosenkranz. "In no way did I mean to minimize the Holocaust. I regret the choice of words, and I will not repeat it."
Grayson was responding to a letter from Rosenkranz, who noted that an earlier Grayson statement using the term Holocaust "may not have been the best choice of words."
Rosenkranz said the statement was "more than a poor choice of words" and that "using the Holocaust as an analogy for flaws in the current health care system is inappropriate and serves only to trivialize the murder of 6 million Jews and millions of others.
Grayson made the statement that the health care system was a "holocaust in America" on Sept. 30 as a response to criticism of his comments the previous day that the GOP position on health care reform was "Republicans want you to die quickly."
