WALNUT RIDGE, AR– Former U.S. Attorney and candidate for U.S. Senate Conner Eldridge tomorrow will hold a press conference reaffirming his support for the “Arkansas Works” program. The press conference will be held in Walnut Ridge at the Lawrence Memorial Hospital at 3 p.m. Conner will be joined by Representative James Ratliff of Imboden, who represents District 60, which includes Lawrence County, and parts of Greene and Independence counties. They will be joined by other local leaders and folks from the local medical community to highlight the importance of the “Arkansas Works” program and the essential role it plays in supporting rural hospitals like Lawrence County Memorial.
“Keeping Arkansas hospitals in good financial health is fundamental to growing the Arkansas economy and rural hospitals are vital to the communities they serve. For far too long, we have left these medical facilities financially burdened with unsustainable uncompensated care losses. The private option program, known as ‘Arkansas Works,’ that so many leaders from both sides of the aisle helped implement has done quite a bit to reduce uncompensated care loss. It may not be perfect, but it has been a significant improvement,” stated Eldridge.
The bipartisan Medicaid-expansion plan known as Arkansas Works passed the Arkansas House and Senate earlier this year. Currently, there are 267,000 people enrolled in private health insurance, and as a result of the Private Option legislation, Arkansas’s uninsured rate has fallen from 22.5 to 9.1 percent since 2013. The bipartisan Medicaid-expansion plan, known as Arkansas works, also provides a positive net gain of $438 million to the Arkansas budget over the next five years.*
In the past, Senator Boozman has repeatedly declared his intent to repeal the program in Arkansas. Senator Boozman said he had “no qualms” about kicking 267,000 off their private health insurance.
“I am proud to say I stand with Republicans and Democrats alike who came together, listened to the people of Arkansas, and fought hard for legislation that works for them,” said Eldridge. “What I am not proud of, is having a senator who can’t get past his Washington partisanship enough to agree with a majority of Arkansans – Republicans and Democrats alike – on an issue as important as their healthcare. Sen. Boozman’s reckless comments, in which he says he has no qualms about kicking 267,000 people off health insurance, show a fundamental misunderstanding of the needs the people of Arkansas are facing.
This issue is clear as day: the Republican leadership and the Democratic leadership agree with it. I applaud Governor Hutchinson's leadership on this important issue. In the Arkansas legislature, both Democrats and Republicans worked together to make improvements and reauthorize Arkansas Works. In Arkansas, we know how to put people over partisanship. The fact is Arkansas Works is good for the economy, it is good for all of our hospitals in the state and vital for our rural hospitals like this one right here in Lawrence County. It is unconscionable that Senator Boozman wants to take our state backwards.
I think Washington could learn a thing or two from how we do things here in Arkansas. Successfully reauthorizing Arkansas Works is an example of the extraordinary things that happen when lawmakers put people over politics, and Democrats and Republicans come together to protect rights of the people they represent. It’s time we saw that same commonsense approach to governing in Washington.”
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Born in Fayetteville, Eldridge grew up in Augusta and Lonoke. After law school, he moved to Arkadelphia where he worked as a community banker and served as a prosecutor for Clark County. Eldridge moved to Fort Smith following his unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate in 2010 to become U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas. A husband and father of three, Eldridge now lives in Fayetteville.