Progress Illinois

With health care reform gaining momentum on Capitol Hill, GOP Rep. and U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kirk took another crack at "slowing things down" in his North Shore district yesterday morning. During a town hall event in Northbrook, the Republican Senate hopeful pushed many of the same dubious "alternative proposals" he put forth back in August-- tort reform, looser state insurance regulations, and expanded individual tax credits -- as part of his so-called "centrist approach" to reining in the skyrocketing cost of health insurance.

Speaking to a weekday crowd packed with senior citizens, Kirk continued to sow fears that the Democratic-favored reforms will "really hurt seniors." Specifically, he repeated the misleading claim that President Obama's proposal to reform the Medicare Advantage program could cost 200,000 elderly Americans their health care. As we've previously noted, there is no basis for the Republicans' fearmongering. The New York Times editorial board dug into the issue last weekend and came to the same conclusion, noting that "coverage for a vast majority of Medicare recipients, those in traditional Medicare, should actually improve under health care reform." And the Washington Post's Ezra Klein yesterday cited a new academic study which found that the proposed changes to Medicare Advantage would not have a significant effect on the benefits received.

Kirk's exaggerations aside, one notable moment came when a local self-employed constituent explained the situation in her household (her son has a benign heart murmur and her family pays $26,000 annually for insurance "that doesn't cover everything"). She went on to remind her fellow North Shore neighbors that "we all have the money to help pay for [health care reform]. Everyone in this room has the money. Give up one of your Starbucks." As you can see in the video below, the audience was none too pleased with that idea:

Ellen Beth Gill has more thoughts on the event.