Numerous citizens protested Nov. 9 outside U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly’s office in Erie to condemn his stance on the Affordable Care Act.

Kelly has voted more than 50 times to repeal or chip away at President Barack Obama’s signature law.

There are numerous problems with the unrelenting effort by Kelly involving his votes concerning the ACA.

First, Kelly’s claim that the American people want the law repealed is flat-out false. A recent poll shows the American people want the ACA to be fixed, not repealed — 71 percent want Congress to improve the law.

Second, Kelly portrays himself as a fiscal conservative; however, his failed repeal votes have cost American taxpayers about $72 million even though, if passed by the Congress, a bill to repeal ACA would meet Obama’s veto pen. That is wasted money just for meaningless symbolic votes.

Finally, what is most appalling is Kelly’s obsessive need to take away sick people’s health insurance. I have an inoperable and incurable brain cancer as well as a seizure disorder due to my brain surgery. Without the ACA, I would not be able to afford my radiation and chemotherapy that would prolong my life and allow my family to spend at least one more day with me, which is something Kelly would take away from them. Without ACA, I could die even sooner without my seizure medication.

Tom Qualtere, Kelly’s communications director, claimed Kelly’s replacement plan wouldn’t discriminate against people like me with preexisting conditions, even though I would be thrown into an underfunded high-risk pool and allow insurance companies to charge me up to 200 percent more just because I happened to be born without tumor-suppressing genes. Qualtere said I wouldn’t be discriminated against despite these facts.

To Kelly it is OK to play politics with people’s lives and (to put it nicely) not be truthful to a dying constituent all in the name of politics. To Kelly, government officials like him shouldn’t make sure all citizens are treated equally and have subsidized insurance to stay alive all the while my tax dollars go towards subsidizing his car dealerships, such as the Cash For Clunkers programs.

His business, to him, is more important than his constituents’ lives.