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Democrat Challenging Walden On Health Care

Democrat Aelea Christofferson is challenging Republican Greg Walden for Oregon’s 2nd Congressional seat.
Campaign photo
Democrat Aelea Christofferson is challenging Republican Greg Walden for Oregon’s 2nd Congressional seat.

Aelea Christofferson, the Democrat taking on Greg Walden, Oregon's only Republican member of Congress, released an attack ad Friday blasting Walden's opposition to the Affordable Care Act.

Democrat Aelea Christofferson is challenging Republican Greg Walden for Oregon’s 2nd Congressional seat.
Credit Campaign photo
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Campaign photo
Democrat Aelea Christofferson is challenging Republican Greg Walden for Oregon’s 2nd Congressional seat.

But it’s a strategy that could work in her opponent’s favor.

Health care could be Christofferson's biggest Achilles Heel. She served on the board of Cover Oregon during that organization's most tumultuous period. But her campaign says she was critical of the health insurance exchange even as she helped govern it.

Now, the central Oregon businesswoman is attacking Walden for repeatedly voting against Obamacare in Congress.

"While I worked to get healthcare coverage for 300,000 Oregonians, he voted more than a dozen times to deny health coverage to people with pre-existing conditions," Christofferson said in a new ad that's appearing online.

A spokesman for Walden said the incumbent does support coverage for pre-existing conditions but he doesn't think the President's health care law is the right way to do it.

Walden is a high-ranking Republican who's served eastern and southern Oregon since 1999.

Copyright 2014 Northwest News Network

Chris Lehman
Chris Lehman graduated from Temple University with a journalism degree in 1997. He landed his first job less than a month later, producing arts stories for Red River Public Radio in Shreveport, Louisiana. Three years later he headed north to DeKalb, Illinois, where he worked as a reporter and announcer for NPR–affiliate WNIJ–FM. In 2006 he headed west to become the Salem Correspondent for the Northwest News Network.