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Physician, Congressional Candidate: Fix Obamacare

Dawn Schmitz
/
Flickr

Congressional candidate and emergency room physician Dr. David Gill thinks Obamacare should be fixed, not repealed and the first step is to address insurance company involvement. 

Gill, a Democrat, has announced he's running against Republican incumbent Rodney Davis who represents Illinois' 13th District.  Gill spoke against the GOP's Affordable Health Care Act Tuesday night at a Stand Up For Justice rally on the lawn of the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts.

Gill said he thinks the country needs a single payer system, improved Medicare for all, and the insurance industry had too much input into the creation of Obamacare. 

"The insurance companies are trying to exit from it (Obamacare) because they're not meeting the profit margin they desire," said Gill. "One needs to understand insurance companies have nothing to do with health care. They're not involved in this to make people healthy. Their mission statement is to maximize profit."

Gill said profit margins have fallen from around 3o% 40% prior to Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act to 20% or 25% today. He said they're not meeting the expectations of shareholders and that's why so many are backing out in different states.  If the bill passes as written, he said he thinks there could be a voter backlash in 2018. 

"There's ever growing support for Obamacare. There's 60 percent of this country that now wants to see a single payer system that I've been talking about for 25 years," said Gill. "To go backwards in such a strident manner is bad politics on their part."

Gill said the GOP's Affordable Health Care Act might be good for him politically, but he added what he does in the field of politics is because of his concern for his fellow  man and he doesn't want to see pain brought to his neighbors.

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