Jeff Berkowitz of Public Affairs reports today on Peter Roskam’s address to the Chicago chapter of the Republican National Lawyers Association. Roskam spoke to the group on June 22 at Svenson Law Offices in Chicago. (Svenson is a law firm with a specialty in defeating Workers Compensation claims by injured employees. )
According to Berkowitz, Roskam addressed the issue of healthcare reform, indicating his opposition to any plan that includes a public option because such a plan would be a first step toward a single payer system, driving out options for private health coverage. Apparently leaving millions without any coverage or care is a better option in Roskam’s view than anything that might harm the private health insurance carriers.
Berkowitz says he asked Roskam if he could support a Democratic plan without a public option. Roskam “indicated that would get him and his fellow Republicans “to the table,” but other issues would likely remain to be worked out.” From this we gather that a vote by Roskam to support insurance coverage for 6th district Residents who presently have no access to care is highly unlikely. This is hardly a surprise. As usual, Roskam’s constituents will have to look to Democratic Congressmen in other districts to stand up for their needs.
According to Berkowitz, Roskam disputes the widely accepted estimate of 47 million uninsured Americans, indicating many are illegal immigrants or young people who are healthy and don’t want coverage, leaving only about 15 million truly uninsured. 15 million Americans without adequate health care, it would seem, are not worth worrying about.
Healthcare aside, it is interesting that Roskam chose to speak to this group. RNLA is in the vanguard of Republican efforts to suppress Democratic votes, devoting significant energy to the defamation of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). ACORN is a large and venerable grassroots organization of low and moderate income families, born of the civil rights movement, that has worked tirelessly to ensure living wages for workers and benefits for workers, increase the availability of affordable housing, end predatory lending practices, and improve the quality and funding of the public schools – all those things that Republicans like Roskam fiercely oppose.
Republicans hate ACORN because it has run very successful voter registration efforts aimed at giving a voice to the marginalized. Because the Republicans have such a diminutive base of economic elites, and because wedge issues like gay marriage are beginning to lose their power to sway voters, Republicans must increasingly rely on vote suppression to have any chance at all of regaining a majority. Hence the vicious and basesless attacks against ACORN that have become so common.
I find it quite ironic that many of the same Republicans who are so critical of what they view as a weak response by President Obama to the obvious fraud in the recent Iranian election are so eager to keep people from voting here at home.
Related posts:
- Where’s Peter Roskams Healthcare Plan?
- When it Comes to Healthcare, Peter Roskam Seeks Only Failure
- Why Are My Tax Dollars Being Used for Peter Roskam’s Campaign Mail?
- Peter Roskam Votes Against Affordable Healthcare for Illinois
- Peter Roskam Clueless About Health Needs of Constituents – Works to Torpedo Reform
