Healthcare big topic at La Crosse town hall with Ron Kind on Wed.

Kind had enough of Obamacare being political punching bag.

While town halls across the country have many citizens firing back at their representatives, Democrat Ron Kind was greeted by a mostly friendly crowd Wednesday.

Kind took questions from a group of about 300 people at the La Crosse Legion Hall. Several questioners criticized words and actions of President Donald Trump during his first month in office. 

Kind says he wants to see more Republicans in Congress speak up, if they don’t like what Trump is doing.

“This cannot just be viewed as a partisan issue all the time,” Kind told the crowd. “They have a responsibility to protect our democracy like anyone else. Because we all took the same oath, and that’s to uphold and defend the Constitution … not to uphold and defend President Trump and his administration.”

People in the crowd had “agree” and “disagree” signs they would hold up as Kind spoke on different issues.

One issue Kind brought up was the Affordable Care Act – something a lot of Republican incumbents getting calls on to preserve. Kind heard similar comments and mentioned that there could be some changes to the ACA, but the rhetoric at which healthcare is discussed among Congress needs to change, as well.

“We’ve got to move beyond the place of just using Obamacare as a political punching bag, because it’s just getting old,” Kind said to cheers from the crowd. “It’s playing with people’s lives, right now.”

Kind says Republicans seem to be short of ideas on how to replace ACA, because many of the health policies they support are already in place with it.

Other issues brought up were Social Security, hacking by the Russians and the future of the Democratic party.