The extensive and sarcastic attack in the recent editorial on the “AR Health + AR Jobs” coalition, a new voice in the debate over an expansion of Medicaid in Arkansas, was disheartening.
The editorial condemned Ray Hanley’s role as coalition chair. He is not a lobbyist or a consultant, and is not paid for his work with the coalition. This grass-roots organization asked for his leadership in bringing together service providers, patient groups and health-care advocates to educate Arkansans about the importance of expanding Medicaid services to the working poor.
It is egregious to claim the coalition’s motivation includes “collecting still more consulting fees,” as the editorial stated. As chairman of the board for the Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care-a member organization of the coalition and Mr. Hanley’s employer-I can emphatically state that this is not the case.
The foundation is a nonprofit organization founded 41 years ago by the Arkansas Medical Society. Now independent of the Medical Society, Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care is the federally designated quality improvement organization for the state of Arkansas. As such, the foundation contracts with the Centers for Medicare& Medicaid Services to monitor and improve the appropriateness, quality and outcome of health care provided to the state’s Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care employs 185 people who work daily with hospitals, nursing homes and doctors to improve health care in Arkansas.
How does the foundation help improve health care in the state? By working with hospitals to make sure their patients have the information and care they need at discharge so they don’t end up back in the hospital unnecessarily. By assisting health-care providers and physicians to adopt electronic health records to improve communication among the healthcare team. Foundation staff act as advocates for Medicare beneficiaries and their families who have concerns about the quality of care they received, or who believe their Medicare benefits are being cut off unjustifiably. These are just a few of our projects that create a real, measurable and lasting impact on the quality of health care all Arkansans receive.
Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care CEO Ray Hanley is a former state Medicaid director who left in 2002. After his departure, he worked in 45 states and Canada-but not in Arkansas-for Hewlett Packard Enterprise Services. After an eight-year absence from Arkansas’ health-care community, Hanley joined AFMC in 2010. It is ludicrous to imply that Hanley’s career path has been a “revolving door” in terms of influencing health policy in Arkansas. Because of term limits, almost the entire state Legislature has turned over since he left Medicaid.
Finally, let’s address the idea that the Medicaid expansion is only good for those who will benefit from it. True, lower-income families will get the most help-which is, after all, the point-but the overall positive impact is more widespread.
If Medicaid is expanded, every Arkansan will benefit in one form or another.
The state’s hospitals will benefit, especially rural hospitals drowning in bad debt from uninsured patients unable to pay for treatment. Some of Arkansas’ rural hospitals may well not survive without the Medicaid expansion. If a hospital shuts down, this will mean hundreds of jobs lost in counties where the hospital is one of the community’s major employers-not to mention the loss of local health care for everyone living in those counties.
Without the Medicaid expansion, people making more than 100 percent of the federal poverty level-$11,490 for an individual, $23,550 for a family of four-will still get coverage through the insurance exchange, but those adults living below poverty-many of them working poor-get no coverage.
There are, according to Arkansas Business, 314,000 people working in this state at wages between $7.50 and $9.99 an hour. These people serve us all. They care for the elderly, work in retail and restaurants, provide child care and often do hard labor. Many go to the emergency room when they are very sick, and then face bills they can’t pay-bills that the rest of us have to absorb through the hidden tax of paying higher premiums and higher local taxes. Many of them would qualify for Medicaid coverage under the expansion.
Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care is committed to working to make sure every Arkansan has access to affordable health care. It’s not just necessary-it’s simply the right thing to do.
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Dr. Dwight Williams is chairman of the Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care board of directors.
Editorial, Pages 17 on 03/30/2013