The conservative group Independent Women’s Voice announced yesterday that Terri Lynn Land has signed their “Pledge to Repeal Obamacare”. The pledge reads:
The Repeal Pledge
(Candidate Version)I pledge, if elected, to vote for all bills which seek to REPEAL the health care bill, HR 3590, signed into law on March 23, 2010.*
To that end, I would now and will in the next Congress endorse and vote for all measures, including discharge petitions, leading to its defunding, deauthorization, and repeal.
I shall do so whether those measures are taken for the whole of the bill or those component parts that impose mandates, restrict patient and doctor choice and access, violate individual freedom and privacy, reduce healthy competition, increase costs, or raise taxes.
*The healthcare bill is defined as consisting of: 1) The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590), signed into law on March 23, 2010; and 2) The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (H.R. 4872), signed into law on March 30, 2010.
**The Repeal Pledge’s Advisory Board, recognizing the tactic of attaching poison pills to otherwise qualifying legislation, will determine which legislative efforts are legitimate for the purpose of this pledge.
Sure enough, if you go to the “Signers” page on their website this morning, you’ll see Land’s name at the top of the list:
Note that Republican Congressional candidate in Michigan’s 4th District, John Moolenar, is on the list, as well, along with Congressman Dan Benishek (MI-01), Congressman Fred Upton (MI-06), and Congressman Bill Huizenga (MI-02).
According to Charles Gaba of ACASignUps.net, in Michigan, nearly a 400,000 working poor people now have health insurance though Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. This is in addition to the estimated quarter million who have benefited from being able to purchase health insurance at a reduced rate as well as those who can’t be denied coverage based on a pre-existing condition and whose kids (like my daughter) can stay on their health insurance until they are 26.
Land has failed to say how she would respond to the thousands upon thousands of Michiganders who would be thrown back into the abyss of inadequate health care coverage. This is somehow part of her “Michigan First” plan, apparently.
Terri Lynn Land is grasping for anything that will bolster her campaign which is in a death spiral. She appears to think that this move will win her votes, as if the tea partiers she’s appealing to were going to vote for her Democratic opponent Gary Peters otherwise.
It’s just more evidence that Land isn’t a serious candidate or a serious contender.
[Caricature by DonkeyHotey for Eclectablog. Adapted from: Wikipedia – State of MI and HHS – Chris Smith]
