A Pledge to Fight for Arkansans

The failing, flailing leadership of the Democratic Party of Arkansas (DPA) attempted to do the impossible yesterday – defend the indefensible, condescending, “I know better than you,” “I don’t care what Arkansans think” vote of Sen. Blanche Lincoln for the healthcare bill that recently passed on an entirely partisan vote in the U.S. Senate.

In a press release brimming with desperation, inaccuracies, and exaggerations – the DPA challenged Republican U.S. Senate candidates to pledge to repeal a bill that would constitute the government’s takeover of every Arkansans’ personal healthcare decisions. Like so much of their statement, their challenge badly missed one essential fact: there is no bill to repeal.

However, I gladly accept the real challenge. Today, I’m pledging to continue to fight with and for an overwhelming majority of Arkansans who clearly do not want this atrocious bureaucratic intrusion into the most personal and private parts of their lives. Together, we’ll continue the battle to stop this bill from ever becoming law and to prevent this horrific government takeover of 1/6th of the entire U.S. economy.

Arkansans are much more intelligent and well-informed than the DPA seems to give them credit. They understand that this bill represents the most sweeping erosion of personal liberty in our lifetime. If enacted, it will create the following:

• Sharp increases in taxes and health insurance premiums.
• Unbearable new costs for small businesses, destroying thousands of jobs at a time when more Americans are out of work than in the last quarter century.
• Sharp cuts in Medicare benefits for our seniors.
• An unprecedented and unconstitutional requirement for all Americans to buy health insurance.
• An unfunded and unconstitutional mandate requiring States to dramatically increase their state tax-funded Medicaid programs.
• A monstrous addition to our national debt, further mortgaging our children’s and grandchildren’s futures.
• The most significant increase in federal funding of abortions since Roe vs. Wade.

Blanche Lincoln, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi ignore the fact that the goal of improving healthcare for all Americans can be achieved without the government’s ill-fated takeover of our healthcare system. The simple fact is that we can make healthcare more accessible by making healthcare more affordable. But we’ve got too many people making the rules who – like Lincoln, Reid, and Pelosi – have never had to make a payroll or provide health insurance for their employees.

We can make healthcare more affordable and more accessible with simple but very effective steps, including these:

1. Eliminate the costs of unnecessary ‘defensive’ medical tests and procedures by making frivolous and unjustified lawsuits more difficult.
2. Help Americans become healthcare ‘value shoppers’ by expanding health savings accounts.
3. Lower premiums by making health insurance more competitive by allowing Americans to purchase health insurance across state lines.
4. Increase benefits for home healthcare and managed care which have as their objective letting Americans avoid long and expensive stays in hospitals – ultimately dramatically lowering the costs of healthcare.
5. Eliminate the fears of losing one’s healthcare or of not having pre-existing conditions covered by allowing employees to own their policies, with premiums reimbursed by employers with pre-tax dollars.
6. Make private individual health insurance premiums tax deductible.

With backroom bribes, midnight votes, and closed-door political payoffs, it hasn’t been hard to recognize how bad this bill is. What’s difficult to understand is how anyone could pretend to defend it.

We need healthcare reform, but this bill makes the problem worse and I will do everything in my power to defeat it. It is my most sincere wish that Sen. Lincoln would re-think her position when the conference report comes back before the Senate. Now, it is HER turn to answer to the people of Arkansas. "Will you represent the values and views of Arkansans, Sen. Lincoln?"