Private option is a Senate bid issue

District 34 race touches on deal

State Sen. Jane English
State Sen. Jane English

In his bid to unseat state Sen. Jane English, state Rep. Donnie Copeland is condemning a deal that English and former Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe reached to secure her vote on reauthorizing funding for the private-option Medicaid expansion.

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Arkansas Secretary of State

State Rep. Donnie Copeland

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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

A map showing the location of Senate District 34.

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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

A listing of top contributors to Sen. Jane English and Rep. Donnie Copeland’s Senate campaigns.

In exchange for her vote, she received Beebe’s support on restructuring and increasing funding for the state’s workforce training programs.

In her campaign for re-election, English is highlighting her work to overhaul those workforce training programs and to improve education, particularly around Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville.

Copeland and English, both of North Little Rock, are vying for the Republican nomination in Senate District 34.

The winner of the March 1 party primary will face North Little Rock Democrat Joseph Woodson Jr. in the November general election.

Senate District 34 generally includes North Little Rock, Sherwood, eastern Maumelle and the Jacksonville area, north of Interstate 40 and west of U.S. 67/167.

Copeland said people should vote for him in the primary because he’ll be “a consistent conservative.”

English said people should vote for her because she has done “a good job” representing 85,000 constituents in the district during the past three years.

English, 75, was born in Lincoln, Neb., and moved to Arkansas in 1981 with her husband, who served 30 years in the Army. Among other things, she was senior project manager for the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission from 1984-99 and director of the state Workforce Development Board from 2001-04.

She has served in the Senate since 2013 and is chairman of the Senate Education Committee. She was in the state House of Representatives from 2009-13.

Copeland, 54, was born in Monroe, La. He was a pastor at a church in Sherman, Texas, from 1986-2002 and has been the pastor at Apostolic Church in North Little Rock.

He has served in the state House of Representatives since 2015.

PRIVATE OPTION

The District 34 race is one of three state Senate GOP primary contests in which critics of the private-option program are attempting to defeat lawmakers who voted to authorize the use of federal funds for that program.

The private option has deeply divided Republicans since the GOP-controlled Legislature and Beebe authorized the program in 2013.

The program uses federal Medicaid funds to buy private health insurance for some low-income Arkansans.

Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson wants to overhaul the private option to encourage recipients to work and take personal responsibility for their health. He also wants to rename the program Arkansas Works.

Supporters of the private option say the program is a conservative alternative to President Barack Obama’s federal health care law and note that the state obtained waivers from the federal government for it.

Almost 250,000 Arkansans had been approved for coverage under the private-option program as of Nov. 30. That included about 199,000 who were in private-option plans and more than 22,000 others who were being covered by the traditional, fee-for-service Medicaid program because their health needs are considered exceptional.

The state will have to begin paying 5 percent of the cost of the program in 2017, and the state’s share will gradually increase to 10 percent by 2020.

Copeland said his promise to oppose the private option helped him unseat state Rep. Patty Julian, D-North Little Rock, in 2014. “I kept my promise.”

He said English “didn’t keep her promise [that] she would not vote for Obamacare.”

But, English said she didn’t break any promise.

“I have always been against Obamacare, but the private option came in after I was elected [to the state Senate in 2012],” she said. “The only promise I made was I won’t vote for tax increases. That’s the only promise I made.”

In 2013, English voted against legislation creating the private option and authorizing the use of federal funds for it, but in 2014 she voted to authorize those funds as part of her deal with Beebe. Last year, she also voted to authorize the funding.

English said she made the 2014 deal with Beebe because the state needed to change workforce training programs to reduce the number of Arkansans on food stamps and other social welfare programs. That has been a topic of legislative discussion, and without the changes, she said, lawmakers would still be discussing it 15 years from now.

“I saw this as an opportunity to make a change, and I don’t apologize for it,” she said. “Sometimes you have to look at the big picture and think what you were elected to do. … I have changed the status quo because we just can’t go on the same path.”

Copeland said he would vote to repeal the private-option Medicaid expansion.

“My focus is going to be on the people that Medicaid was originally designed for — not this expanded population,” he said. “The people who have benefited the most [from the private option] are healthy working-age folks with free insurance, and lobbyists and the medical-related industry that I call Big Medicine.”

English said she’s doesn’t know how she’ll vote on funding for an overhauled private-option program.

“I haven’t seen any legislation,” she said. “I’ll just have to wait and see.”

English has warned that Copeland would represent the Conduit for Action nonprofit group that opposes the private option. That group was co-founded by businessman Joe Maynard and attorney Brenda Vassaur Taylor, both of Fayetteville, who have contributed to Copeland’s campaign.

Copeland said there is no connection between his campaign contributions and his stand against the private option. He said he makes up his own mind and doesn’t base decisions on what Conduit for Action wants.

“Look where her money is coming from. Look where my money is coming from,” he said. “I promise you the people giving her money expect her to keep the gravy train going. It’s the Medicaid expansion.”

English countered that the business people who are helping fund her campaign, “don’t care”about the Medicaid expansion.

Private industry has donated money to her because it is “excited about the chance of hiring skilled and educated workers,” she said.

Copeland said he opposes the workforce training part of English’s deal with Beebe because “it severely undermined our two-year colleges.”

But English said her workforce-training push aims to link the high schools with the two-year colleges and universities, “so there is a career path.” She said that didn’t undermine the two-year colleges.

OTHER ISSUES

English said it’s important to support Little Rock Air Force Base and “make sure that everything that surrounds the Little Rock Air Force Base is in good shape, so that we don’t face a base closure.”

She said she co-sponsored legislation that cleared the way for schools in Jacksonville and North Pulaski County to detach from the Pulaski County Special School District, and she supports Maumelle’s and Sherwood’s efforts to create their own school districts, as well.

Copeland said he favors creating a tax rebate or refund program that would allow parents to collect several thousand dollars a year to send their children to the school of their choice. English said she’s also “a huge supporter of school choice.”

Copeland and English have both signed the Washington, D.C.-based Americans for Tax Reform pledge to oppose any tax increases.

Copeland said he wants to cut the size of state government with the aim of having “zero income tax” in Arkansas.

The Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration projects that the state’s individual income taxes will raise $3.1 billion this fiscal year, which is nearly half of the $6.4 billion in total state general revenue that the state expects to collect.

State tax refunds and several other government expenditures come off the top of total general revenue, leaving the “net” general revenue that agencies are allowed to spend. The state’s $5.19 billion general revenue budget mostly pays for education, human services and prison programs in Arkansas.

“You are going to have [to eliminate the state’s income taxes] in phases, but I think over a eight-year period … we could do it,” Copeland said.

But English said she doesn’t think that’s realistic. She said she hopes to gradually reduce the state’s individual and corporate income taxes, noting that she voted last year for Hutchinson’s plan to cut state income tax rates by more than $100 million a year.

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