ARHealthNet- Beebe Pushes Huckabee's Socialist Legacy

From the "Not a Dime's Worth of Difference" Department:

One of the last things Huckabee did before leaving the office of governor here in Arkansas was unveil his socialized health care plan for small businesses. Perhaps you've heard the various commercials touting the ARHealthNet program:

ARHealthNet is a unique partnership between state and federal government, employers and families, designed to provide needed health coverage for low income employees at an affordable price. http://www.arhealthnet.com/

When I am out trying to sell group health care to businesses I hear this commercial repeated ad nauseum. The state is taxing me to fund a competitor that can help put me out of business.

I wish it were a "unique" partnership, but it's merely socialism wearing pig lip stick.

The initial press release stated that "ARHealthNet is one of the first true partnerships between state and federal government, businesses and families." So they understand that this is new ground in health care in Arkansas-- a huge expansion in socialized medicine. I say expansion, because you remember how it started out as "for the children?" Says Huckabee in a press release from December 2006,

"This is just what the doctor ordered for the health and well-being of the state's small businesses... ARKids First has been a huge success in covering children. ARHealthNet will now reach many of the uninsured adults." http://www.achi.net/current_initiatives/health/Docs/061220%20Waiver%20News%20Release.pdf

You can see that socialists like Huckabee are proud of their incremental approach to state nannyism. The commercials tout the "advantage" that small employers will have (over the small employers of other states?). I suppose that in today's corporatist America, any nth-degree relationship that can be established between a state service and the private business sector is justification to stick the taxpayers for the bills of yet another collectivist program. But ask yourself, if programs like ARHealthNet are such great investments for business, why are we taxpayers the ones asked to pay for it?

As I said, I have an interest in this since I sell group health insurance. I am beginning to think that the government will make that service obsolete because both parties want the government to take over health care. I guess I can sign up for a government retraining program! It is getting harder and harder for an honest man to make a living in this country without the permission of some government bureaucrat. The coverage offered by the state's new group health insurance plan is weak- if I tried selling something like that and calling it "group health care" they would probably pull my insurance license. But it is cheap for the members, not just because the coverage is minimal but because the taxpayers are footing part of the bill. It would be like the government owning McDonald's and offering Big Macs for a dime (with the taxpayers subsidizing the rest). What would it do to Wendy's to have that kind of government sponsored competition?

Government health care is going to be a disaster for this country, as it has been for other countries and as it has been for the government health care system that has already been set up- the much-maligned VA system. If this government provides shoddy care to its veterans, what makes you think it will do better for you?

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None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

Goethe