Walsh making ‘Obamacare’ centerpiece of re-election bid
A day after the two-year anniversary of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s signing, Republican Congressman Joe Walsh said repealing the law he and other opponents dub “Obamacare” is the centerpiece of his re-election bid.
“Nothing like this law will transform this country as much as this law,” Walsh said after one of his trademark town hall sessions Saturday in Hoffman Estates. “It impacts everything: health care, the debt, the economy and religious freedoms.”
He added that voters should “be prepared to go to jail to defend your freedoms. That’s what this election is about.” He cited Catholic health care system leaders who opposed federal mandates regarding abortions and birth control and risked losing federal funding.
Walsh is running against Democrat Tammy Duckworth, a former administration staff member under President Barack Obama and an Iraq War veteran, in the newly redrawn 8th Congressional, which contains only about 20 percent of Walsh’s current district.
Walsh spent more than an hour discussing the “dangerous” health care law with a crowd of roughly 60 people, including a videographer from the Duckworth campaign whom he repeatedly acknowledged throughout the event by punctuating statements about his opponent with a wave and a, “Hi Tammy” at the camera.
Walsh said the health care law should be “the biggest issue” of the 2012 campaign.
“It will determine the fate of this country whether we repeal it or whether we keep it and expand it,” he said. “We know the American people like it less and less every week and new reports say it’s going to cost us a lot more than what they told us.”
The McHenry Tea Partyer brought out two private practice doctors and an insurance broker who also derided the new health care law that is still being challenged in the courts. All three men agreed with Walsh’s perspective.
“Obamacare does nothing to make (health care) less expensive,” said Dr. Rich Ferolo, a general practitioner based in Barrington. “Any politician — I don’t care what side of the aisle — that talks about fixing the health care system without fixing the legal system doesn’t understand the problem.”
Most of the crowd was on Walsh’s side as well. A few in the audience challenged Walsh and his panel’s positions, including Damian Christianson of Hoffman Estates.
“I heard a whole lot of distortions of the issues,” Christianson said. “Of course, the health care system has issues and it’s going to be expensive, but I don’t anybody on the other side offering alternatives other than repealing.”
Even Walsh acknowledged shortcomings on alternatives.
“We don’t do a strong enough job articulating what we are for,” he said. “We consider this thing not just a bad law, but so dangerous that the whole point of stopping and repealing it is so paramount that we get so worked up about it.”
Walsh said he believes electing any Republican president would ensure the law’s repeal.
“No matter who the Republican president is, Obamacare will be repealed in week one,” he said. “If he doesn’t, we’ll storm the White House.”