Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) returned to the U.S. Senate on Monday. The Senate reconvened after a two-week recess. Fetterman was returning after a two-month stay at Walter Reed Medical Center for treatment for clinical depression. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also returned to work after recovering from a fall he took at an event more than a month ago. Senator Dianne Feinstein has not yet returned to work. She is recovering from shingles.

Fetterman was dressed in casual style in shorts, sneakers, and a hoodie. I assume he’s not allowed on the Senate floor in that attire but could work in his office. He told reporters, ‘It’s great to be back.” He didn’t take any questions. He was released from the hospital at the end of March but returned home to Pennsylvania for a two-week sprig break.

On Wednesday, Fetterman will chair his first hearing, a subcommittee hearing of the Agriculture Committee. It is the Subcommittee on Food and Nutrition, Specialty Crops, Organics, and Research. The hearing will focus on SNAP and the assistance it provides to working families through the Farm Bill. Federal farm programs expire on September 30. Both the House and the Senate Agriculture Committees are working on legislation to renew them. Fetterman is said to have worked on the issue in Pennsylvania last week. He met with farmers and toured a dairy farm.

It is unusual for a freshman to chair a Senate committee. He is being rewarded for flipping the seat in Pennsylvania from Republican to Democrat. Never mind he hasn’t been able to do the job up until now. It remains to be seen if he can and how long he lasts until he requires another medical absence.

He released a statement about the hearing. It began, “Cut SNAP for families and kids while pushing tax cuts for billionaires? Not on my watch.” Just a man of the people, right? Wrong. He’s a man of privilege and that includes his medical coverage. Special accommodations have been made for him in the Senate in order for him to do his job. A severe, life-threatening stroke left him with some disabilities he has not recovered from. Instead of allowing himself the time to heal and re-learn skills after the stroke, he pushed on in his campaign to win the Senate seat. Apparently, no one loved him enough to convince him to drop out and take care of himself. He lost the time that was critical to his permanent recovery. It’s a sad story.

House Republicans have been calling for tougher work requirements for people who qualify for the SNAP program. Senators are to take up that discussion. House Republicans have floated the idea of tougher work requirements in exchange for agreeing to raise the debt ceiling. Democrats have opposed the idea.

Fetterman’s 44 days of hospitalization for clinical depression is also a sign of his privilege that is not available to the everyman he claims to represent. The Philadelphia Inquirer ran an article on that topic. Fetterman’s stay at Walter Reed, as a U.S. Senator, was about four times as long as a stay would be for an average person in Pennsylvania.

To put Fetterman’s experience in perspective, The Inquirer analyzed state data on all 42,000 hospital stays for depression in 2021, the most recent year available. About a third were in the Philadelphia area, the records maintained by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council showed.

The length of Fetterman’s stay was unusual ― about 97% of hospitalized patients for depression were discharged within 30 days. But he fit the profile of many Pennsylvanians treated in hospitals for this condition: a white man who was discharged home after his stay.

That’s not to say that Fetterman, a freshman U.S. Senator, is a typical patient. The 53-year-old from Braddock, Pa., sought care at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., a premier hospital serving national leaders. By contrast, many in Pennsylvania have to wait months just to see a therapist.

“He had great health care and was able to really take the time he needed to do what was right and address his mental health,” said a senior aide to Fetterman, who shared with CBS Sunday Morning that his depression is in remission for the “first time ever.”

I wish him well, as I would anyone suffering from what he suffers from. I’m not a doctor but maybe he wouldn’t have such severe problems if he had taken time to recover properly in the first place. The phony show of pretending to be just another blue-collar guy is tiresome. He has wealthy parents who supported him well into adulthood. He’s been blessed with advantages that many of his constituents don’t have. Maybe he can show some respect for his office and dress appropriately for it.

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