{"id":253,"date":"2026-07-01T01:16:04","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T01:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=253"},"modified":"2026-07-01T01:16:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T01:16:04","slug":"tom-kean-says-house-absence-was-due-to-depression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=253","title":{"rendered":"Tom Kean Says House Absence Was Due to Depression"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tom<\/div>

<\/p>\n

\n

Americans finally got an explanation. If only Republicans would stop trying to kill access to mental-health care for everyone else<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n\t\t<\/p>\n
\n

\n\tRep. Tom Kean<\/a> is back in the House after a mysterious 117-day absence<\/a> during which the New Jersey Republican missed at least 100 votes. He, finally, has provided an explanation as to why he disappeared<\/a> from his elected office for nearly four months, in what other lawmakers have described as \u201cradio silence.\u201d\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSeveral months ago, due to health concerns, I entered the hospital for some testing. I did not believe that this would result in a long-term stay [and] I was given the diagnosis of depression,\u201d Kean said in a floor speech on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNow, when people hear the word depression, many people think it simply means feeling sad. But depression is so much more than that,\u201d he added. \u201cThe doctors recommended that I remain in the hospital to address my illness. They explained to me that this would be the fastest way to recovery, and to be honest, I was hesitant. I didn\u2019t think that I had time for it \u2014 I had responsibilities to my constituents. I had responsibilities to this institution. And like many people, I believed that I could simply push through.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tKean added that he originally thought he would only be absent from Congress for a few weeks, but that \u201cas the over 48 million of my fellow Americans being treated for this illness have come to discover, there is no timeline for healing. There is no timeline for recovery, only the work of getting better one day at a time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tThe congressman then reiterated his support for access to mental-health care. As of now, the Republican Party at large has expressed increased opposition to proven mental-health treatments including SSRIs \u2014 common forms of antidepressants and mood stabilizers. In May, it was reported that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had explored outright banning<\/a> certain antidepressants from the market.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump and the GOP\u2019s so-called Big Beautiful Bill kicked millions of Americans off of their health insurance, depriving many of potentially life-saving mental-health care and treatments. Kean was one of the Republicans who voted in favor<\/a> of the legislation in July of last year. Most Americans cannot take time off from work to focus on their mental health<\/a>, and the party Kean represents is intent on making it harder for them to do so.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Americans finally got an explanation. If only Republicans would stop trying to kill access to mental-health care for everyone else Rep. Tom Kean is back in the House after a mysterious 117-day absence during which the New Jersey Republican missed at least 100 votes. He, finally, has provided an explanation as to why he disappeared…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/tom-kean-is-back.jpg?w=1600&h=900&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[478,480,479,477,476,475],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-absence","tag-depression","tag-due","tag-house","tag-kean","tag-tom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}