2 offer views on health coverage

Senator, his rival differ on ’10 law

U.S. Sen. John Boozman said Saturday that he favors creating a federal block-grant program for states to help provide health insurance for low-income people, if the federal health care law signed by President Barack Obama in 2010 is repealed.

But Boozman's Democratic opponent, former U.S. Attorney Conner Eldridge, said it "rings hollow" for the Republican to talk about creating such a program, after Boozman voted more than 50 times to repeal the health care law.

Arkansas is providing health coverage to about 267,000 low-income Arkansans under Arkansas' version of Medicaid expansion with federal dollars made available under the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The state will begin paying 5 percent of the cost of the program on Jan. 1 and its share will gradually increase to 10 percent by 2020.

The federal government granted the state a waiver for the private-option program, authorized in 2013 by the Arkansas Legislature and former Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat. The program is now called Arkansas Works under legislation enacted in a special legislative session last month.

Speaking before the Arkansas Associated Press Managing Editors meeting in Little Rock, Boozman said that he wants to repeal the health care law and increase free-market competition in health care, allow businesses to pool together to purchase health insurance, and enact "tort reform" to help make insurance more affordable.

"There is a need for people who are uninsured, and I think there's lot of talk about taking and block granting some money to the states, so they can use those dollars in a way they feel like they need to, without tremendous bureaucracy out of the federal government, to take care of the people they need to take care of," he said. "So that's the way I'd approach it."

Boozman said he didn't know whether a block grant would cover the same number of people as the current Medicaid expansion and provide the same amount of federal funding.

"This is what many of the governors are asking for because what we need in Arkansas in regard to health care ... is different than what they need in Massachusetts," he said.

"I think you give the governors the ability to take those dollars. They can use them much, much more efficiently than [being] micromanaged out of Washington," said Boozman of Rogers, who has served in the U.S. Senate since 2011 and was in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2001-2011.

He said he's talked to some Arkansans who have health insurance through Arkansas' version of Medicaid expansion, and some recipients like it and others don't. Some Arkansans don't like getting health insurance through the Medicaid expansion because they previously got their health insurance through their employers and their employers no longer provide health insurance, he said.

Eldridge later told the group that "it's interesting" that Boozman brought up favoring a federal block grant program.

"I don't know that he volunteered that up over the last five years in the debates since he has been in the Senate," he said.

"I think it sort of rings hollow for me that he would come in here today and sort of offer that as an answer to your question," said Eldridge of Fayetteville.

"What I am interested in doing is making sure that the 267,000 people that have health insurance today in Arkansas [through the Medicaid expansion] remain on health insurance and that's not revoked from them," Eldridge said.

He said he has talked to people who have health insurance through Arkansas' Medicaid expansion, and "they told me that they are glad to have health insurance."

Eldridge said the federal government needs to provide more flexibility for states to come up with their own solutions.

He said he would work to fix problems with the federal law and to make health insurance more affordable. He said he favors increasing tax credits for small businesses to purchase health insurance.

Eldridge declined to say whether he would have voted for the health care law.

"I am not going to go back to 2010," Eldridge said.

"He is for repeal. I am opposed to repeal. He won't answer the question on Arkansas Works. I am with Gov. [Asa] Hutchinson and the Republicans and Democrats that supported it," he said.

Boozman said "I haven't been privy to what the state is trying to do" as he focused on his work in the U.S. Senate.

"I tried to stay out of their business," because Arkansas lawmakers had to make a decision whether to reauthorize Arkansas' version of Medicaid expansion, Boozman said.

As for the race for president, Boozman declined to disclose his choice in Arkansas' March 1 Republican primary.

Businessman Donald Trump of New York, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are now vying for the Republican presidential nomination.

Boozman said that he doesn't know who the Republican nominee will be.

"It is being fought out right now," he said. "The process needs to be a very open, very transparent convention, which I believe it will be. And at the end of the day, I will support our nominee. Anybody is going to be better than Hillary or Bernie."

Former U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont are vying for the Democratic nomination.

Eldridge said he voted for Clinton in the primary.

"To me, it is no question she was the best choice."

Eldridge declined to predict who will be the parties' nominees.

"I am focused on my race and the reason for that is, whoever is the president of the United States, we need a strong senator representing this state," he said.

Metro on 05/01/2016

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