COATS: VOTING ‘YES’ ON OBAMACARE AN ENORMOUS ERROR

Job Killing Bill Supported by Cong. Ellsworth is Irresponsible, Radical and Intrusive

INDIANAPOLIS (March 19, 2010) – Dan Coats, candidate for United States Senate, released the following statement in response to Congressman Brad Ellsworth’s decision to vote in favor of Obamacare:

“I am shocked by Congressman Brad Ellsworth’s decision to vote in favor of the irresponsible, radical and intrusive Obama-Pelosi job-killing health care bill. Congressman Ellsworth’s decision, made in Washington apparently after some serious arm twisting by liberal special interests, goes against an overwhelming and consistent majority of Hoosiers who oppose this legislation.

“I fundamentally disagree with Congressman Ellsworth on the impact of this health care bill on Hoosiers and Americans. I’m not sure which Hoosiers the Congressman has been talking to, but in my travels across the state there has been overwhelming opposition to the ultra-liberal Obamacare plan.

“Just days after Governor Mitch Daniels’ statement on the enormously negative impact in Indiana – with billions of dollars in new taxes — Congressman Ellsworth’s decision is an enormous error and a stunning example of how members of Congress can lose their way when they stop listening to the people they represent.

“There are plenty of reasons to oppose the Obama-Pelosi health care plan including the massive tax increases and government intervention in personal health care decisions, but to think Congressman Ellsworth could support legislation that will raise premiums on Hoosier families, eliminate the Healthy Indiana Plan and cause hundreds or maybe even thousands of Hoosiers to lose their jobs is incomprehensible.”

Background

Governor Daniels’ letter to Indiana’s Congressional delegation stated that the Obama-Pelosi-Ellsworth plan was “hopelessly misguided, unaffordable, and dangerously adverse to the interests of Hoosiers today and tomorrow.” According to the letter:

· The massive expansion of Medicaid will cost Hoosier taxpayers billions more in state taxes, leaving one in four Hoosiers on public assistance
· There will not be enough health care professionals to care for this huge new influx of Medicaid patients
· The Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP) would be eliminated, adversely affecting 45,000 Indiana families
· A study of the effects in Indiana showed premium increases ranging up to 78 percent
· A job killing tax of $2,000 per employee will be levied on many companies
· The costs for this massive entitlement expansion are vastly and misleadingly understated: An honest estimate would show an additional of more than a trillion dollars of national debt

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