Roskam continues to cowardly flee from health care debate

During the eight years of the Obama presidency my congressman Peter Roskam gave health care the attention it deserved. He featured it in blaring headlines on his website. He created photo ops on health care. He proposed health care solutions. Alas, every action was designed to prevent, defund, degrade and repeal the first successful effort to insure 20 million Americans without and prevent hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths. He did this by denying truths and promoting falsehoods. And he rode that disgraceful campaign to four more terms as congressman in the Illinois Sixth. Nobody lost heath care or died due to Roskam's mendacity because his disgraceful conduct was purely symbolic to appeal to his heartless, anti government base.

Then a curious development derailed Roskam's interest in health care: Republican congressional majority. On March 7 Roskam trumpeted this about the GOP placement bill: "Following through on our commitment to responsibly repeal and replace Obamacare, my colleagues and I are pleased to introduce the American Health Care Act. We’re presenting a plan to increase access to affordable, patient-focused health care for all." Tens of thousands of Sixth District residents recoiled in horror that Roskam was promoting the opposite: 22 million tossed off health care rolls and 200,000 unnecessary dead over a decade. And that wasn't symbolic; it was a grotesque possibility. The pushback as swift and relentless; Roskam could no longer appear in the Sixth without protest. Health care became the critical domestic issue that dare not speak its name in Roskamland. The website went dark; the photo ops ceased; the Trumpcare trumpet was muted.

The Illinois Sixth has gone from one of the safest Republican seats to 'in play.' Roskam's cowardice on healthcare reminds us that you can fool some of the people all of the time; all of the people some of the time; but you can't keep a majority when it's a matter of life or death.