Sen. Jim Hendren of Sulphur Springs will be the Senate Republican leader after the Nov. 4 general election, the Senate Republican Caucus decided this week.
The caucus also elected Sen. Jimmy Hickey of Texarkana to be the next Senate Republican whip.
Hendren has been a leading opponent of the state's private-option program under which the state is using federal Medicaid dollars to purchase private health insurance for low-income Arkansans, while Hickey has supported it.
Hendren said Wednesday that he wants to be the Senate Republican leader because "it's important that we work together as a majority and there is no question we have allowed ourselves to become divided over the private option, and we are going to work to overcome that and I think we'll be successful.
"I think you overcome it by making people understand that there are a lot of other issues that are very important and we cannot allow one issue to distract us from all of these other issues," he said.
More than 150,000 Arkansans have been enrolled in private health insurance with funds made available under the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The private-option program has deeply divided Republicans in the state House and state Senate, where a three-fourths vote is required to continue funding for the program.
The state will be expected to pay 5 percent of the program's cost in 2017, and its share will gradually increase each year to 10 percent in 2020.
Private-option coverage began on Jan. 1.
Asked whether he would continue to push to end the private-option program, Hendren said he's not working to terminate it.
He said he wants Senate Republican lawmakers to try to figure out "if there is path that we can take that puts us on a more sustainable [path] so that the benefits we provide folks, we just don't give them one day and take away the next.
"Nobody is in favor of giving people a bunch of stuff only to find out that we can't afford it in the long term and we have to take it away. It would be better to give what we can afford, figure out ways where we don't have to provide these programs, but instead these people have insurance because of job creation," Hendren said.
In last month's special session, Hendren sponsored legislation that was enacted into law that would make about 4,000 part-time public school employees ineligible for coverage through the state's health insurance plan for public school employees. The move is expected to save about $7 million a year, money that can be used to reduce premium increases for plan participants. Proponents of the proposal said most of the part-time employees would qualify for the private option's subsidized coverage.
Hendren and Hickey will succeed Sens. Eddie Joe Williams of Cabot and Jonathan Dismang of Searcy, respectively, in their leadership posts.
Dismang, who is an architect of the private option, is in line to be the Senate president pro tempore in 2015 and 2016. Williams said he decided not to run for re-election as Senate Republican leader because it is time-consuming position.
The Senate comprises 21 Republicans and 13 Democrats, after the resignation of Sen. Johnny Key, R-Mountain Home. Key is now associate vice president of university relations for the University of Arkansas System.
Hendren has been in the Senate since 2013.
He was in the state House of Representatives from 1995-2001 and previously served on the Gravette School Board. He lost his bid for the 3rd Congressional District seat to Rogers Republican John Boozman in a 2001 special election after Asa Hutchinson left the seat to become director of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
Hutchinson, who is now the Republican gubernatorial nominee, is Hendren's uncle.
Hickey has served in the Senate since 2013 and previously served on the Texarkana School Board.
Metro on 08/07/2014