Miller-Meeks: GOP Victory in Massachusetts Proves ‘ObamaCare’ Backer Loebsack is Vulnerable This Fall

OTTUMWA – Massachusetts voters’ selection of a Republican state senator to succeed the late Democratic icon Edward Kennedy in a special election signals a critical change in the national electorate’s mood that will be felt in this year’s House races in Iowa, GOP congressional candidate Mariannette Miller-Meeks said tonight.

“No one should take anything away from Scott Brown. He worked hard and he and his advisers have great political instincts. But there’s a much larger lesson to be learned from his victory, and it is that voters are fed up with Congress, the Democrat-led effort to dismantle our private health-care system and they’re going to reject candidates who have supported it,” Miller-Meeks said.

Miller-Meeks, an Ottumwa ophthalmologist, has been an outspoken critic of the “Obamacare” legislation that will reduce average Americans’ access to quality health care while increasing the price they pay. She noted that legislation approved by the Senate last month “will benefit insurance companies at the cost of the taxpayer and ordinary working, middle-income Iowans and Americans.”

“It doesn’t bend the cost curve down. It doesn’t control costs. It does not provide universal coverage or portability for individuals so they can keep their insurance coverage as they go from one job to another or one state to another. What it does do is put a tremendous financial burden on the backs of working Americans,” she said. “The voters of Massachusetts could see all that and they voted to put a stop to it. There is no louder or clearer message than to give the Senate seat held by Teddy Kennedy, the father of the entire government-run health care movement, to a Republican who opposes the scheme being proposed by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama.”

Rep. David Loebsack, a Mount Vernon Democrat, voted for the Pelosi-backed House version that will be the basis for negotiations with the Senate.

“David Loebsack is on the wrong side of the health-care issue. He hasn’t listened to his constituents yet but he just might get the message tonight,” Miller-Meeks said. “If a Republican victory in Massachusetts doesn’t convince him to do the right thing and vote against government-run health care, you can bet Iowans will replace him with someone who will. I give you my word I’ll represent the best interests of this district.”

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