LITTLE ROCK — Politicians such as Democratic state Rep. Reginald Murdock and Republican state Sen. Jonathan Dismang represent Arkansas’ chance to avoid Washington politics, Gov. Mike Beebe told a crowd of hundreds on the Capitol steps Thursday at a rally in support of expanding Medicaid.
As Beebe, a Democrat, began his remarks, he clapped Murdock and Dismang on the back and said Democrats and Republicans must work together or risk Arkansas being left out of the stream of federal dollars designed to cover up to 250,000 poor Arkansans.
Murdock, from Marianna, and Dismang, from Searcy, are key players in the bipartisan negotiations to offer health coverage through the state’s private insurance exchange to those making up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line, or $15,145 annually for an individual.
“If Republicans and Democrats don’t work together, it’s fruitless,” Beebe said.
Federal dollars meant for Arkansas would instead go to states such as Michigan, New York and others that have agreed to expand their Medicaid programs as authorized by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Beebe said.
No neighboring state has agreed to expand. The Arkansas Department of Human Services has estimated that billions of federal dollars will enter the state between 2014 and 2021. Studies by pro-expansion groups have shown thousands of lives would be spared, thousands of jobs created and rural hospitals saved.
Many Republicans are worried about the future cost to the state after the federal government stops picking up the entire tab for expansion in 2017. By 2020, the state will be responsible for 10 percent of the costs.
Rep. Mark Biviano, a Searcy Republican, attended the rally, watched from the crowd. Before he makes up his mind, Biviano said, he wants more information on future costs to the state and “preliminary information” from Gary Alexander,a Pennsylvania health and welfare official recently hired by the GOP to examine Arkansas’ $5 billion Medicaid program, which covers about 780,000 poor Arkansans.
“I’m open. I’m willing to discuss it,” Biviano said.
Former state Medicaid Director Ray Hanley, the leader of a coalition that includes AARP, hospitals, doctors and other providers, noted that passage of ARKids, the state’s Medicaid program for low-income children, in 1997 “was a bipartisan effort.” Beebe, a state senator at the time, was influential in helping the program gain legislative approval.
“Frankly, that is the model that will come out of this building here. With good faith, compromise, negotiations and work, we can do for these low-income, hardworking people, what we did for kids,” said Hanley, now the president and chief executive officer of the Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care.
Dismang, the lone Republican to speak at Thursday’s rally, said the Legislature has changed. It’s now more focused on gathering information and keeping an open mind, he said.
“That’s not always been the case [in past sessions],” said Dismang, who has been in the Legislature since 2009.
After the rally, Dismang said he thought a deal would get done.
“I wouldn’t be working on it if I didn’t think something in the end wouldn’t work itself out,” he said.
Earlier Thursday, Rep. John Burris, R-Harrison, told the House Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee, which he leads, that work remains to reach a final deal.
Burris responded to a story in Thursday’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which detailed e-mail exchanges between Burris and Beebe administration officials over “talking-points” and “check boxes” that Burris thought would offer enough flexibility to gather the needed 75 votes in the House and 27 in the Senate to approve expansion.
“I want to be very clear where we are. I want to say the same thing publicly that I have said to all of you privately,” Burris told panel members. “The tone of the article I felt implied that there was an agreement. That a lot of this was about talking points and sales pitch and that is not an accurate description of where we are ... There is an opportunity, but there are many, many questions that remain unanswered.”
Burris, who didn’t respond to a request for comment before the story was published, said he now wished he had done so in order to add the necessary “context” of his conversations with the Beebe administration. He said he thought the story “merged” his own objectives with those of Beebe, who is a longtime supporter of expansion.
House Speaker Davy Carter, a Cabot Republican, arrived at the committee room and stayed through most of Burris’ talk before leaving without comment. Carter later said he was just showing his son around the Capitol.
At the rally, Beebe said some obstacles to expansion remain.
Some Republicans have been “busy doing other things” in the first seven weeks of the session and haven’t yet had time to ask questions and study the issue, he said.
Abortion, gun rights and other social issues dominated the early weeks of the session, mostly advanced by the GOP.
Beebe said new cost estimates for expanding Medicaid through the state’s insurance exchange likely would be released next week.
Asked to predict the chances of expansion - seen by many as almost impossible in the GOP-controlled Legislature until Beebe unveiled a deal with the federal government last week- Beebe shrugged.
“Who knows? ... It’s on a positive track. But, you know, 75 percent in both houses is hard to get. We’ve done it before, and I’m cautiously optimistic that it’s moving in the right direction,” Beebe told reporters.
Front Section, Pages 7 on 03/08/2013