Courtney: I have been living with endometriosis for 20 years.
Linda: I was healthy, except for the MS. Scared to death with the MS.
Courtney: I was having to make choices between groceries or the medication I needed. When people like Erika Harold threaten Obamacare, I can’t believe how little she values people like me with preexisting conditions.
Linda: The threat of Obamacare being taken away is one of those sort of bad dreams. So when I hear that politicians like Erika Harold wanting to repeal Obamacare, I get angry, and honestly get scared.
Courtney: I can’t vote for Erika Harold.
Linda: Absolutely not.
* The Champaign News-Gazette editorial board, which endorsed area resident Erika Harold, is spitting mad…
If politics wasn’t such a sleazy business, this advertisement would set a new low for being misleading.
Harold, like Raoul, is running for attorney general of Illinois, not for federal office.
Obamacare — aka the Affordable Care Act — is federal legislation passed during former President Barack Obama’s first two years in office.
Court challenges have been filed against Obamacare and been rejected. There is nothing that Harold could do about repealing Obamacare, even if she wanted to do so.
This is classic scaremongering engaged in by a loser candidate who fears he’ll lose an election if he can’t drive his opponent’s negatives sky high.
* I asked the Raoul campaign for a response…
That’s false. Donald Trump and Republican state attorneys general are in Texas district court trying, yet again, to destroy the ACA and take healthcare away from people with preexisting conditions. Democratic AGs, including Lisa Madigan, have intervened to vigorously defend it. In 2014, Republican Erika Harold said she wanted to “repeal it all,” regarding the ACA. Not only could she do something to destroy Obamacare — we have every reason to believe she would.
The campaign is right about the court case and the News-Gazette is wrong.
* From the Champaign News-Gazette in 2014, when Harold was running for Congress…
Harold said she wanted to “repeal it all and start all over again with consumer-driven” reforms.
“Specifically on the issue of the Affordable Care Act, I don’t think it’s a bill that can be reformed. When we look at the consequence throughout the district, with people losing plans they liked, having to pay increased premiums and I think we’re going to see the full effect of it when the employer mandate goes in effect … I think it’s fundamentally flawed.”
Kwame Raoul is lying about Erika’s record because he can’t run on his own fourteen-year record of failure in Springfield. The truth is Erika supports the Illinois law barring insurance companies from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions, and Erika would not have joined the lawsuit seeking to have the Affordable Care Act declared unconstitutional.
I’m Erika Harold. If JB Pritzker is elected governor, he and Mike Madigan will have total control over state government. That much power in the hands of any one political party isn’t good for Illiniois. I’ll be a check on the Pritzker-Madigan agenda and work for you, not them.
Can Harold win? The “wave” environment would suggest not, but if voters are looking for a check on JB Pritzker and Speaker Madigan and they can’t bring themselves to vote for Gov. Rauner, she might be a realistic option. At least, that’s what the Republicans are hoping for. It’s probably too bad she can’t just come right out and say that in an ad, but much of her money is coming from Rauner, so it’s unlikely that she can or will.
