Arkansas Blog

Ernest Dumas in the Arkansas Leader lauds House passage -- opposed by the usual Republicans -- of an expansion of the program to provide health insurance for children of  lower income working families. He recalls the program's roots:

Back in 1997 when Governor Mike Huckabee and Mike Beebe, then a leading state senator, agreed to set up the ArKids First program, there was grumbling in the governor’s own party that it was socialized medicine. Huckabee called it Christian benevolence, a biblical injunction. Now Huckabee is on the other side, leading the chants of socialism against the new president’s plans to expand health coverage among people who cannot get or afford health insurance. Huckabee’s motto is, it’s Christian when I do it but unpatriotic when Democrats do it.

Thanks to 82 House members a family of four making up to $44,000 can qualify for health insurance. The dishonor roll of 18 Republicans who either voted no or took action with the same effect -- a vote of present or a non-vote: Ann Clemmer, Dan Greenberg, Jon Woods (all not voting), Jonathan Dismang (voted present) and the pure nays --Duncan Baird, Davy Carter, Jane English, Ed Garner, Frank Glidewell, Debra Hobbs, Karen Hopper, John Paul Burris, Allen Kerr, Bryan King, Andrea Lea, Mark Martin, Terry Rice, Stephanie Malone. Writes Dumas:

It would be hard to find a way to spend the money with better societal results. It will improve the health of thousands of youngsters with long-lasting benefits, and it will give relief to working families who have seen their incomes rise only a fraction of the rate of medical-care inflation. Some 79,000 Arkansas children are uninsured, most of them in working families that will become eligible under the bill.

The Limbaughs and Santellis and their running dogs have no truck for such losers.
Happily, they are in the minority.