Peter Roskam Launches Campaign to Strip Constituents of New Health Benefits

On April 4, 2010, in Healthcare, Medicare, Middle Class, Peter Roskam, Senior Citizens, by RSR
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Congressman Peter Roskam, the Republican representing Illinois’ 6th Congressional District in Chicago’s western suburbs, this week launched his campaign to repeal the landmark healthcare reform legislation recently signed into law by President Obama. Roskam, who campaigned vigorously against the bill and who voted against its passage, complains that the legislation raises healthcare costs and taxes on the middle class, piles on to the national debt, and interferes with the doctor-patient relationship.

Roskam’s complaints, are, of course, baseless. The health reform legislation will provide subsidies for low- and middle-class families to make health insurance more affordable, reduces the deficit by $132 billion over 10 years, and does absolutely nothing to disrupt the relationship between patients and physicians. And it will make health insurance available to millions of working Americans who do not have access to coverage today – 32 million by 2019. Roskam, however, is determined not to let that happen. He says the plan is a radical government takeover of healthcare. It isn’t. It is simply sound insurance regulation coupled with subsidies to make insurance more affordable. In fact, as the President has pointed out, the health exchanges that will be created under the new law are very similar to a plan created by the conservative Heritage Foundation.

The Kaiser Family Foundation has produced a couple of excellent resources to help you understand what is covered under the new healthcare legislation and the timeline over which changes will take place. If we had real representation in Congress, your Congressman would be helping you to understand this information. Since he will not, we will try to help to the degree that we are able.

Roskam’s opposition to the healthcare bill appears to be rooted in large part, not so much in the details of the reform plan, but rather in an overwhelming desire to see the President fail in order to advance his own party’s electoral prospects. Roskam is also a steadfast opponent of any kind of consumer-friendly industry regulation, be it in the realm of healthcare, banking, or the environment. We have all already seen the disatrous results of the Republican deregulatory ideology in creating the recent banking and credit crisis with the resultant recession. Now Roskam, if he has his way, would replace the Democratic reform legislation with a massive deregulation of the health insurance industry that will do nothing to help working people but will help line the pockets of the insurance companies that fund his campaigns.

Though his his claims about the dangers of the healthcare reform legislation are without merit, Roskam has enormous resources at his disposal. His Congressional office gives him tremendous access to corporate media eager to help him in his misinformation campaign and his Congressional budget and franking privileges allow him to produce mailers like we saw last summer designed to scared district residents about reform. We will have to be strong and fight hard to keep him from taking away our hard-won health benefits.

We encourage you to contact Peter Roskam to voice your support for healthcare reform and to ask him to cease his efforts to take away your benefits. You can reach him at (630) 893-9670 in Bloomingdale or at (202) 225-4561 in Washington.

Roskam has also taken to Twitter as part of his efforts to kill health reform. You can talk back to him directly there. He is @PeterRoskam and he is tweeting about repeal using the tag #218hcr. We are doing are best to counteract his misinformation there.

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Does the Evangelical Movement Belong in the Democratic Party?

On November 8, 2009, in Ben Lowe, Christianity, Congressional Elections, Peter Roskam, by RSR
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Kevin Spidel posted a thoughtful diary today at Daily Kos posing that question, using Peter Roskam’s 2010 challenger, Ben Lowe, as a case in point.

My answer is an unequivocal “yes”.

Excluding anyone on the basis of their religious belief is wrong and efforts to do so should be deplored by all Democrats. I admit to having a reflexive tendency to react negatively to avowed Christians, particularly Evangelicals, running for political office. That tendency is based on years of experience with the likes of Jerry Falwell and Tony Perkins. But assuming that all Evangelicals share their world view is not correct and, to the degree that I do so, I am guilty of the same kind of intolerance peddled by them.

We are only beginning to be acquainted with Ben Lowe. Let’s ignore the stereotypes and let him speak for himself about who he is and what he wants to achieve through his candidacy. While it is too early to promise Ben my vote, he has my attention, and I am encouraged by what I have heard so far.  I support his candidacy as a Democrat.

I am firmly committed to preserving a woman’s right to choose. I am equally committed to LGBT rights.  A candidate’s positions on these matters are important and they affect the way I vote. But, for me, anyway, there is no litmus test. Our country and our planet face some many critical problems right now – global climate change, poverty & hunger, a looming water crisis, a health care crisis  – and we have to be willing to work with everyone to attempt to resolve them. I would remind everyone that we presently have a Representative, voting on our behalf, who seems to think everythings hunk dory as long as we keep giving tax breaks to rich folks. It is hard to imagine that a person like Ben representing us would not amount to an improvement.

At any rate, I hope that Democrats will give Ben a chance to speak for himself on issues like abortion and LBGT rights rather than rush to judgement. If anyone is truly attempting to undermine his candidacy, I hope they will cease and desist. We should be thanking Ben for having been willing to step up to the plate when no one else would.

Update: Kevin’s post referred to above has been deleted from Daily Kos  but is available on MyDD. Not sure what happened on Daily Kos to prompt the deletion. I thought it was a great post. There was a pretty vigorous discussion going on when I last saw it but seems like that’s a good thing, that Democrats wrestle with this issue.  Also, check out Ben Lowe’s thoughts regarding Faith and Politics.

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Peter Roskam Unveils Plan to Aid Troubled Oil Companies

On July 20, 2008, in Energy, Environment, Gas Prices, Peter Roskam, Peter Roskam's Corporate Agenda, by RSR
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Big Oil has been having a tough time lately. Since George Bush took office, gasoline prices at the pump have more than tripled, forcing the oil companies to absorb huge windfall profits and causing whining, irrational consumers and Democrats in Congress to question the large subsidies that the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress have provided to the companies and to ask themselves whether we should be using so-called “alternative” forms of energy.

Now just as things were beginning to look bleak for Big Oil, our own Congressman, Peter Roskam, has unveiled a plan to help the oil companies weather these difficult times. Disguised as a plan to address the high fuel prices that consumers so unfairly complain about, the Roskam plan cleverly nips all talk of renewable, clean, alternative energy sources in the bud, and secures our dependence on fossil fuels into the distant future.

The Roskam plan is stunning in it’s simplicity. It focuses on two major actions: tax breaks to the wealthy and unrestrained domestic drilling.

Under the Roskam plan, residents of the 6th district who are suffering hardship from high gasoline prices will be able to receive a substantial tax credit for trading in their Hummer or Escalade for a smaller, more sensible Lexus or Mercedes. Who said Roskam was insensitive to the needs of the disadvantaged?

For many years now, Democrats and other communists in the environmental movement have successfully thwarted Big Oil from drilling in protected areas offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in the name of protecting the environment. Well screw the environment! Peter Roskam’s energy plan tells these tree-hugging pansies who’s boss. Why drilling in ANWR alone will knock 4 cents off the cost of a gallon of gasoline within 20 years and supply a whopping 3 percent of our nation’s energy consumption no later than 2027. Democrats in Congress have tried to insist that the oil companies must first pursue drilling in the 5,500 oil leases that they currently possess. Roskam won’t rest until Big Oil has it all, tourists and pelicans be damned.

But Peter Roskam is no Johnny-Come-Lately to the cause of Big Oil. Since coming to Congress, Roskam has consistently used his votes to advance the interests of the Oil Companies and ward of threats posed by alternative energy technologies and increased fuel-efficiency standards.

Thank God, in these harrowing times, the oil companies have a friend like Peter Roskam. Remember that when you vote this fall.

Addendum: the pinkos over at Progress Illinois have a post questioning the math Roskam is using to promote his plan. Imagine. Suggesting that a sitting Congressman running for re-election might somehow use fuzzy math to his own political advantage. It boggles the mind.

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Roskam Again Opposes Better Healthcare for Illinois

On March 5, 2008, in Healthcare, Middle Class, Peter Roskam, Peter Roskam's Corporate Agenda, by RSR
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Guest Post: Iraq is the Crucial Issue

On March 2, 2008, in Presidential Race 2008, by RSR
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[Editor's Note: What follows is a contribution from Marvin Sussman, an Elmhurst resident, like me, and a WWII veteran. Marvin is concerned that Democrat's will try to run this fall by simply trying to hang Iraq on Repblicans without offering a realistic alternative solution. He thinks that strategy will fail and I think he may be right. Here Marvin offers an alternative with the hope of inspiring a constructive discussion. He says his efforts to present his ideas to Jill Morgenthaler's campaign have, so far, not been met with a response. We think she might just see them here. Thanks, Marvin, for reading and contributing.] [Update 3/6/2008 - Please read Jill Morgenthaler's response following Marvin's post.]

It is absolutely certain that Iraq will be the determining issue facing Obama and McCain.

To win in November, Obama must be absolutely right on this issue.  It is not enough to hang McCain’s record around his neck.  Obama must present a realistic view of Iraq’s future.  He must show how he would leave Iraq with a semblance of long-term stability.

“If elected, I will do my best to bring complete independence to Kurdistan and to guarantee its security as a sovereign nation!  And I will do my best to separate the Sunnis from the Shi’ites and end their perpetual warfare!  I will ask the UN to hold independence plebiscites for each group.  When everyone has their own nation and their own government, the fighting will stop.  I will get all of our troops out of Iraq!”

That’s the kind of promise that will elect Obama.  But no important Democrat has yet seen complete partition as the only realistic and permanent solution to the Iraq crisis.  No, not Senator Biden’s “weak central government” that controls “only” the army and oil revenue!  Complete partition into totally independent nations!

(more…)

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Never Negotiate with Republicans or Other Terrorists

On December 8, 2007, in George Bush, by RSR
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You know that all is not right in the world when you wake up, as I did this morning, to hear George Bush congratulating the Democratic majority in the Senate for doing the right thing.

If Democrats continue to cave the way they did yesterday on the AMT, they will accomplish that which they are hoping to avoid – lose our votes. Democatic leaders need to muster some courage and be willing to fight hard for what they believe in. If they fail to do so, they risk becoming indistinguishable from the loathsome Bush administration.

One good way they can fight is to put impeachment back on the table. This week’s relevations about Iran intelligence and the CIA destruction of interrogation videotapes provider further evidence, as if any were needed, of the malignity and incompetence of the Bush presidency. If you want to be assured of our votes, do the right thing and bring down this shamelessly corrupt adminstration.

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