Congressional candidate Nick Zoller (R-Fla.) says striking Obamacare of its individual mandate is imperative to economic growth and personal freedom.
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“We’ve got to understand that we need to strip this law of its most harmful component,” Zoller told Rare in an interview Friday, adding repeal of the president’s signature health-insurance law is highly unlikely.
The political consultant announced in October his bid to represent Pinellas County residents and, during the Aug. 26 Republican primary, will go head-to-head with newly minted U.S. Representative David Jolly (FL-13) who, on March 11, won a tightly contested special election to replace the late Rep. C. W. Bill Young.
The son of a physician, Zoller says he relies on the expertise of his father to inform his thinking on the health-care front, adding medical professionals are being squeezed more tightly than ever before.
“This is really stretching their money,” Zoller said of those in the health-care industry — whether medical assistants or X-ray technicians — who have seen a decrease in their take-home pay because of skyrocketing health-insurance premiums experienced as a result of the Affordable Care Act. “Their paycheck is shrinking.”
Furthermore, said Zoller, a worrisome trend is the decreasing attractiveness of the health-care profession — something that will inevitably lead to a shortage in the number of highly trained practitioners in the industry. This, said Zoller, is “going to continue to be a problem.”
Among the first things he would do if elected is present an amendment gutting the Affordable Care Act of the individual mandate — an idea, he says, that will have gained sufficient popularity by the time the election rolls around but a battle not for the faint of heart.
“It requires fight and it requires energy,” said 24-year-old Zoller, who says his comparatively young age, if anything, is reason to vote for him rather than against him.
As for the deficit, Zoller says one has to cut spending before paying down debts, the starting point of which is a line-by-line evaluation of the federal budget to pinpoint wasteful, duplicate spending and entitlement programs.
“We really can’t be a handout state,” said Zoller, especially when “people are losing jobs in the private sector.”
Another of his platform priorities include education — an area he dubs on his website the “civil-rights issue of this era” — specifically, pressuring school boards to put “money back into the classroom”; implementing commonsense reform, like school choice; and creating a system that will attract rather than deter prospective teachers by rethinking so-called performance pay.
As for social issues, Zoller believes human life begins at conception and says on his website that the government should not set the parameters around marriage.
“The proper function of government is to protect individual rights. I believe life begins at conception, and it is unconscionable that government would sanction the taking of the helpless and innocent. I will always vote against government funding of abortion,” he says.
“Our most important unit of government is the family. When larger units of government attempt to supplant the family, we must say no. I believe that marriage is a private, religious institution that should not be defined or redefined by the federal government.”
Zoller in a Feb. 9 Facebook post endorsed Attorney General Eric Holder’s order to issue federal benefits to legally married same-sex couples and said legalization of gay marriage will not solely be achieved through the states.
“Unfortunately, I have come to the realization that, although I do prefer the national government’s actions to remain squarely within actions granted by constitutional authority, the bastardization of our Constitution has made it more and more evident that marriage equality will have to be a collaborative effort undertaken by the states and the national government.”
Furthermore, in a Feb. 25 statement released on another of his Facebook pages, Zoller opposed legislation recently vetoed by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer that would have given business owners with religious objections to civil unions or gay marriage standing in court to defend refusals to participate in gay-marriage-related celebrations.
“Bigoted legislation that would cause gay Americans to face the same sort of ostracized treatment that Black Americans received during the height of the Jim Crow south is deplorable and should be vetoed by Governor Jan Brewer,” Zoller said.
The congressional candidate wants voters to hold him accountable to his campaign promises of reclaiming the American Dream.
“I’m going to offer solutions,” he said. “I’m going to put them on paper.”