Themes familiar in 2's last debate

FAYETTEVILLE -- Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor and Republican challenger U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton met for their second and final debate Tuesday, disagreeing about health care, student loans and how to define "middle class."

The Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce sponsored Tuesday's forum, held at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, which pitted the two major party candidates against each other with more jabs and ground covered on issues both campaigns have raised over the past 18 months.

During the 60-minute debate, the candidates launched direct attacks on each other's voting histories and discussed some more personal topics. Unlike in their first debate Monday on the Arkansas Educational Television Network, third-party candidates -- Libertarian Nathan LaFrance and Green Party candidate Mark Swaney -- weren't invited to participate.

In the first debate, Cotton and Pryor trod well-worn ground -- Cotton working to align Pryor with Democratic President Barack Obama, whose popularity rating has dropped, and Pryor in turn trying to associate Cotton with billionaire out-of-state groups that have been financing multimillion-dollar ad purchases in the race set to top $35 million by Election Day.

The words "Obama" and "billionaires" also were used multiple times Tuesday night. Pryor supporters even placed a limousine in front of the debate hall and handed out fake billion-dollar bills with Cotton's scowling portrait on them. But after the hour was up, topics like student loans, Social Security and health care were taken up in more depth with the two men lobbing fast-paced rebuttals at each other.

Several questions dealt with the federal health care overhaul bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act sometimes called Obamacare. One of those questions focused on the local news that Wal-Mart, based a few miles away in Bentonville, had dropped insurance coverage for part-time workers earlier this month and raised premiums for full-time workers.

"This was not an unintended consequence of the law; this was very much an intended consequence of Obamacare, which is government-run health care," Cotton said. "They want people out of private insurance and into government-run insurance. ... Mark Pryor and Barack Obama promised them if they liked their plan they could keep them."

Pryor fired back, saying that starting from scratch to overhaul the health insurance industry would eliminate several areas of the law that he said have benefited Arkansans.

"They now have an option, that is, they now have the private option," he said. "Before this law passed, people in Arkansas with pre-existing conditions could be and were routinely denied coverage because they had a pre-existing condition. They were one medical emergency away from bankruptcy. ... I do want to make changes in the law, and I've already supported many of those, but I don't want to go back to those days."

Pryor criticized Cotton for not offering answers and mentioned his own battle with cancer more than a decade ago and issues he faced being in a high-risk insurance pool that he said many Arkansans could not afford.

Cotton jumped on the second reference in two days to Pryor's battle with cancer.

"I, like all Arkansans, am thankful that Sen. Pryor survived his cancer," he said. "But quite frankly I heard from many Arkansans who were quite happy with their coverage under the high-risk pool, which Obamacare eliminated."

Pryor also threw some jabs about Cotton's educational history -- undergraduate and law school degrees from Harvard University -- when the issue of student loans and affordable education were raised.

"He did go to Harvard and certainly we're proud of that," Pryor said.

"I say a good student loan rate is 2.3 percent. Congressman Cotton though has voted to double the interest rate on Stafford student loans and in addition to that, he said he wants to repeal the Stafford student loan," he said. "That's called climbing the ladder and pulling it up behind you so nobody else can climb it."

During the debate Monday, Pryor had accused Cotton of feeling entitled to the Senate seat after less than one term in Congress.

Tuesday, Cotton said he hadn't had the type of privileged childhood that would lead him to have a sense of entitlement.

"My parents weren't rich or powerful or well-connected. My dad was a farmer and my mom was a schoolteacher. We struggled to make those decisions. We made the right choices though with a mix of federal loans and private loans from our local bank," he said.

Throughout Tuesday's debate, moderator Roby Brock, managing editor of Talk Business, reminded the candidates that they were not just delivering fast-paced rhetoric but were there to answer questions posed by a panel of Northwest Arkansas journalists.

Several attacks went out over social media during the debate saying Cotton had not directly addressed his plan to deal with the about 200,000 Arkansans who have signed up for health insurance over the federal health insurance exchange and through the private option Medicaid expansion program passed by the Arkansas Legislature in 2013.

The program extends insurance coverage to adults with incomes of up to 138 percent of the poverty level -- $16,105 for an individual or $32,913 for a family of four.

"Part of health care reform is reforming all health programs including Medicaid, which is a broken entitlement system and is running out of money," Cotton told the AETN panel. "We can return that money to state governments and we can encourage the state governments to make the choices that are right for their population under Obamacare programs."

Pryor jumped on the response.

"Congressman Cotton has no answer for the people he would kick off of these private insurance policies here in Arkansas," he said. "He has no answer on pre-existing conditions. He has no answer on you keeping your children on your health care until age 26. He has no answers on any of this, but he's insistent on repealing it."

Cotton also challenged a response from Pryor, who was pushed by Brock to answer a question asking for his definition of the middle class. Pryor said there were several theories on how to define the middle class, but when pushed, said a $200,000 income might be on the upper end of that spectrum.

Cotton pounced on Pryor's definition.

"Sen. Pryor must be the one hanging out with out-of-state billionaires if he thinks that $200,000 in Arkansas is the middle class," he said, adding that he believed a typical household in the state makes about $40,000.

A section on 10/15/2014