\u201cI have a job and I have health insurance,\u201d Representative Hultgren (R IL-14) said, and then paused for a moment proudly emphasizing the Republican spin talking point that when one has a job, one automatically has health insurance. It\u2019s as if life is that simple. If you work, the spin goes, you have insurance. He was attempting to say that if we have jobs, we don\u2019t need a national health insurance plan. We don\u2019t need \u201cObamacare.\u201d<\/p>\n
The subtle part of this \u2018argument\u2019 is that not only is it flawed logically, it blames the victim. If you don\u2019t have insurance, it\u2019s because you don\u2019t have a job. A job will furnish good insurance. And if you don\u2019t have a job, it\u2019s because you\u2019re either not looking, or\u2014to serve the Republican spin even further\u2014it\u2019s because Obama won\u2019t do what the Republicans want so people can have jobs. So therefore, we can all blame Obama. <\/p>\n
But this time his audience at the Oswego Town Hall meeting was not buying it as I noticed they have in the past. No one applauded. No one said, \u201cYeah!\u201d There was silence as Hultgren paused and looked around for support he did not get. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The woman who was next in line to question Hultgren said, \u201cWell, that may be true for you, but it\u2019s not true for everybody. My daughter has a job and she does not have health insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hultgren started to open his mouth to make a comment when she added, \u201cThe company she works for will let her work only thirty hours a week at $10 an hour. It does not provide health insurance for part-time employees.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe surely do not want bureaucratic healthcare. Trust me on this one.\u201d Hultgren said.<\/p>\n
But it didn\u2019t look like people were trusting him on that one. Several blurted out, \u201cWe already have bureaucratic health insurance with insurance companies!\u201d <\/p>\n
Hultgren said that health insurance rates have climbed since \u2018Obamacare\u2019 went into effect. But the woman countered with the fact that rates were rising long before the Affordable Care Act was passed. And in fact, she said, a provision in effect now gives people rebates if the insurance company does not spend at least 80% of its yearly intake on claims. And indeed, millions of people are at this moment receiving checks in the mail from their insurance carriers. <\/p>\n