U.S. Senator Lincoln and David Pryor Discuss Health Care Reform

Right after dinner on September 1st, 100,000 Arkansas households received a phone call. The caller was AARP Arkansas, and AARP’s live guest was U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln (D). The topic was improving access to affordable, quality health care.

Maria Reynolds-Diaz, AARP Arkansas state director, hosted a one-hour tele town hall with Senator Lincoln to give the state’s AARP members direct access to their senior U.S. senator. Approximately 7,000 of those households which were called by AARP participated in a live conversation with Senator Lincoln. Another 10,000 or so were invited to visit AARP’s Health Action Now web site for a chance to email their congressmen and U.S. senators. During the call, some Arkansans shared good and bad experiences with health insurance and health care systems, as well as the experiences of their friends and family members.

Notably absent from the tele town hall was the angry heckling which characterized some of the live town hall meetings on health reform held in August. News reports described some audience members around the nation heckling some congressmen as they talked about the provisions of health reform bills being debated.

A few weeks later, AARP co-sponsored, with the state Department of Aging and Adult Services, a summit on long-term care featuring former U.S. Senator David Pryor as the keynote speaker. Pryor compared the August 2009 town hall meetings on health reform to important discussions about Social Security in the 1980’s because in both cases the status quo is/was not an option. There were no shots fired, no screeching shouts, Pryor recalled. “It was a civil discourse among people with different viewpoints, different philosophies - and we came together. A little different from today.”

Closing his address to the audience of about 200 health policy and service professionals, the former senator said:

"Our country was built on the bedrock of healthy skepticism. The governing principles of our Constitution are as much about limiting power as granting power. We know that-and those rights must be cherished, nurtured and protected. Otherwise our healthy skepticism turns to cynicism and we abandon ship, allowing those who feed on fear and preach suspicion and distrust to become the pirates of our destiny.

It can’t be this way. We owe America too much to back away and give up."

Two reports on reforming Arkansas’s long-term care system were released at the summit, “Choices in Living for Arkansans with Long Term Care Needs,” and “Recommendations to Balance Arkansas’s Long Term Care System.” Both reports are available online.