Private option fails, now by 3 votes

Senate passes it; in 3rd try, House’s 72-25 closer to OK

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/BENJAMIN KRAIN --2/20/14--
Rep Charlie Collins, R-Fayetteville, left, House Minority Leader Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville, top, Jeff Wardlaw, D-Warren, right, and Rep John Burris, R-Harrison, discuss Burris's bill to fund private option Medicaid expansion in the House chamber Thursday afternoon at the State Capitol. The House again fell short of passing a funding bill to continue Arkansas's private option Medicaid expansion despite the Senate passing an identical bill earlier in the day. The House voted 72-25 in favor of House Bill 1150, marking the third time in as many days it has failed to reach the required 75-vote supermajority threshold for passage.The private option plan allows the state to buy private insurance for Arkansans with incomes of up to 138 percent of the poverty level using federal Medicaid money.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/BENJAMIN KRAIN --2/20/14-- Rep Charlie Collins, R-Fayetteville, left, House Minority Leader Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville, top, Jeff Wardlaw, D-Warren, right, and Rep John Burris, R-Harrison, discuss Burris's bill to fund private option Medicaid expansion in the House chamber Thursday afternoon at the State Capitol. The House again fell short of passing a funding bill to continue Arkansas's private option Medicaid expansion despite the Senate passing an identical bill earlier in the day. The House voted 72-25 in favor of House Bill 1150, marking the third time in as many days it has failed to reach the required 75-vote supermajority threshold for passage.The private option plan allows the state to buy private insurance for Arkansans with incomes of up to 138 percent of the poverty level using federal Medicaid money.

The Arkansas House of Representatives failed Thursday for a third day in a row to approve funding for Arkansas’ private-option Medicaid expansion, just hours after the Senate narrowly passed the proposal on the first try.

The bill appropriates $915 million in federal funding to the private option, which uses federal Medicaid dollars to provide private-insurance plans through a state insurance exchange for about 100,000 poor Arkansans.

With the 72-25 vote in the House on Thursday, supporters of the appropriation bill that would fund the state Department of Human Services’ Medical Services Division moved closer to the 75 votes needed for passage. House leaders said reauthorization of the private option is within reach.

Three Republican law-makers failed to cast votes Thursday, and private-option supporters believe those three will eventually vote yes - enough to approve the bill.

“I imagine the lives of three people are going to get even crazier than they have been in the next 18 hours,” said House Minority Leader Greg Leding, a Fayetteville Democrat. “I think the votes have been there this entire time; I just think for whatever reason some representatives have been holding out.”

All 48 House Democrats voted for the appropriation Thursday along with 23 Republicans and the lone Green Party member. Twenty-five Republicans voted against the measure Thursday, a drop from 27 on Tuesday and Wednesday. Two Republicans switched from “no” to “not voting.”

Rep. Les “Skip” Carnine, R-Rogers, failed to vote Thursday after opposing the private option earlier in the week.Reached by phone after the House recessed, Carnine declined to comment on the day’s events. Earlier in the week he said he was looking for a compromise solution.

Another one-time private-option opponent, Rep. Mary Lou Slinkard, R-Gravette, also failed to vote. She didn’t return phone calls Thursday.

The Senate passed its identical version of the appropriation bill 27-8 - without a vote to spare - to send its copy of the funding bill to the House for approval.

Supporters of the program have said that ending funding for the private option would strip health insurance from people who have recently enrolled in insurance plans. Opponents argue that the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will add to the national debt and that the state can’t afford the 10 percent cost of the program that will be required to pick up beginning in 2020.

The expanded Medicaid program extends private-option eligibility to adults with incomes of up to 138 percent of the poverty level - for example, $15,860 for an individual and $32,500 for a family of four.

Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe estimated that ending the program will put an $89 million hole in the state’s proposed $5 billion budget for fiscal 2015 because the state would lose out on hundreds of millions of federal Medicaid dollars. But critics say they doubt that eliminating the private option would affect the budget that dramatically.

The Senate vote Thursday was widely expected since Sen. Jane English, R-North Little Rock, agreed Tuesday to vote for the bill in return for Beebe’s agreeing to restructure the state’s workforce training activities to make them performance-based and boost funding for the programs.

Last year, the funding cleared the Senate with 28 votes. But the program’s fate in the Senate had been in doubt since the Jan. 14 election of another private-option foe. Sen. John Cooper, R-Jonesboro, replaced a private-option supporter who resigned in August. And supporters lost additional ground after Sen. Missy Irvin, R-Mountain Home, announced that she would oppose the private option after supporting it in 2013.

Fourteen Republican senators joined 13 Democratic senators in voting for SB111, and eight Republican senators voted against it.

Sen. Jonathan Dismang, R-Searcy, and David Sanders, R-Little Rock, were two of the key architects of the private-option program.

Sen. Alan Clark, R-Lonsdale, who voted against the bill Thursday, told colleagues he would be in complete agreement with the measure if Dismang and Sanders “were ableto come [up] with Medicaid reform without the overreaching, encroaching federal framework” of the Affordable Care Act.

“I think this is one of the worst socioeconomic policies in the history of our state that we’ll live to regret,” Clark said.

But a private-option supporter, Sen. Stephanie Flowers, D-Pine Bluff, countered: “Sometimes we’ve got to help somebody else if we want to help ourselves.

“If something is going viral and then that person can’t get enough care, how do you think you are going to defend against it? Wouldn’t it make sense for you to protect your child, your children, [by] giving that poor person health care?”

Meanwhile, Speaker of the House Davy Carter, R- Cabot, said the House will meet today at 10 a.m. to vote on the Senate copy of the bill. As of Thursday afternoon, Carter said he planned to take the identical House version to the floor for a vote today, but said he could change his mind. If the House passes the Senate version, the bill goes to the governor.

“I have exhausted my ability to understand the reasoning of some of this timing,” he said.

Beebe said he was still hearing a variety of reasons for why members opposed the bill.

“I think it depends on the person. I think it could be argued that there could be a few votes [from legislators] that are looking at the next election; I think there are some that aren’t. You can’t paint everybody who’s against it with the same brush,” he said.

Beebe said Thursday that he believed the appropriation was getting closer to passing, but he said he would not guess whether the House would pass a version of the bill today.

Carter said he believes that there will be enough votes to pass the Senate version of the appropriation when it gets to the floor.

Several House members said earlier this week that they would not vote to approve funding for the private option until the Senate passed its version. They said as the architects of the program, senators had more room to change it and deserved to deal with the political consequences first as election season approaches.

Rep. Mark Lowery, R-Maumelle, was the third House member who failed to vote Thursday. Lowery also declined to take sides on Tuesday and Wednesday, voting “present” both times.

“I thought it was important to be consistent,” he said. “I thought it showed the speaker’s hubris to bring the House version of the bill up for a vote knowing, at most, he would have 73 votes and knowing that the Senate version would come to us Friday.”

The House debated the motion for passage almost 45 minutes, including about 15 minutes when Rep. John Burris, R-Harrison, who went on to vote for private-option renewal, fielded questions.

“The Senate has voted, and all the pressure of this issue and all who care about it in the state are watching the House of Representatives,” Burris said. “So regardless of where you fall on the issue, there are some simple numbers you can’t ignore … A three-fourths vote requires us to realize that no one person or party will get everything they want. If I could pass a bill with five votes, I would never have to vote for anything I didn’t want again.”

Leding, who warned Democrats would block other appropriation bills if the private-option funding continued to fail, helped postpone a vote on a bill Thursday that would provide funding for Republican Secretary of State Mark Martin’s office.

Many House Democrats were upset in the 2013 General Session when a voter-identification bill that required identification at the polls starting in January passed the House. The measure is overseen and funded through the secretary of state’s office.

Calendar This is the calendar of public events of the 89th General Assembly for today, the 12th day of the 2014 fiscal session.

HOUSE 10 a.m. The House convenes.

House vote on private option

An appropriation bill authorizing the state to fund the private option

Medicaid expansion for fiscal 2015 received 72 votes in the House on

Wednesday. It needed 75 votes to pass.

Yeas: 72

Altes (R-Fort Smith)

C. Armstrong (D-Little Rock)

E. Armstrong (D-North Little Rock)

Baine (D-El Dorado)

Baird (R-Lowell)

Baltz (D-Pocahontas)

Bell (R-Mena)

Biviano (R-Searcy)

Bragg (R-Sheridan)

Branscum (R-Marshall)

Broadaway (D-Paragould)

Burris (R-Harrison)

Catlett (D-Rover)

Collins (R-Fayetteville)

Copenhaver (D-Jonesboro)

Dale (R-Dover)

Davis (R-Little Rock)

Dickinson (D-Newport)

D. Douglas (R-Bentonville)

Edwards (D-Little Rock)

Eubanks (R-Paris)

Ferguson (D-West Memphis)

Fielding (D-Magnolia)

Gillam (R-Judsonia)

Hawthorne (D-Ashdown)

Hickerson (R-Texarkana)

Hillman (D-Almyra)

Hodges (D-Blytheville)

Holcomb (D-Pine Bluff)

House (R-North Little Rock)

Jett (D-Success)

Julian (D-North Little Rock)

Kizzia (D-Malvern)

Lampkin (D-Monticello)

Lea (R-Russellville)

Leding (D-Fayetteville)

Lenderman (D-Brookland)

Linck (R-Yellville)

Love (D-Little Rock)

Magie (R-Conway)

Malone (R-Fort Smith)

Mayberry (R-Hensley)

McCrary (D-Lonoke)

McElroy (D-Tillar)

McGill (D-Fort Smith)

McLean (D-Batesville)

Murdock (D-Marianna)

Neal (R-Springdale)

Nickels (D-Sherwood)

Overbey (D-Lamar)

Perry (D-Jacksonville)

Ratliff (D-Imboden)

Richey (D-Hele

na-West Helena)

Sabin (D-Little Rock)

Scott (R-Rogers)

Shepherd (R-El Dorado)

Smith (G-Crawfordsville)

Steel (D-Nashville)

Talley (D-Hope)

Thompson (D-Morrilton)

Vines (D-Hot Springs)

Wagner (D-Manila)

Walker (D-Little Rock)

Wardlaw (D-Hermitage)

Whitaker (D-Fayetteville)

B. Wilkins (D-Bono)

H. Wilkins (D-Pine Bluff)

Williams ( D-Little Rock)

Word (D-Pine Bluff)

Wren (D-Melbourne)

Wright (D-Forrest City)

Carter, Mr. Speaker (R-Cabot)

Nays: 25

Alexander (R-Springdale)

Ballinger (R-Hindsville)

Barnett (R-Siloam Springs)

Clemmer (R-Benton)

Cozart (R-Hot Springs)

Deffenbaugh (R-Van Buren)

Dotson (R-Bentonville)

C. Douglas (R-Alma)

Farrer (R-Austin)

Fite (R-Van Buren)

Gossage (R-Ozark)

Hammer (R-Benton)

Harris (R-West Fork)

Hobbs (R-Rogers)

Hopper (R-Mountain Home)

Hutchison (R-Harrisburg)

Jean (R-Magnolia)

Kerr (R-Little Rock)

D. Meeks (R-Conway)

S. Meeks (R-Greenbrier)

Miller (R-Heber Springs)

Payton (R-Wilburn)

Rice (R-Waldron)

Westerman (R-Hot Springs)

Womack (R-Arkadelphia)

Not Voting: 3

Carnine (R-Rogers)

Lowery (R-Maumelle)

Slinkard (R-Gravette)

Senate vote on private option

The Senate overwhelmingly approved an appropriations bill that includes funding for the private option in fiscal 2015. The program provides federally subsidized private health-insurance policies to tens of thousands of poor Arkansans. Here’s how the legislators voted:

Yeas: 27

Burnett (D-Osceola)

Caldwell (R-Wynne)

E. Cheatham (D-Crossett)

L. Chesterfield (D-Little Rock)

J. Dismang (R-Searcy)

Elliott (D-Little Rock)

J. English (R-North Little Rock)

Files (R-Fort Smith)

S. Flowers (D-Pine Bluff)

Hickey (R-Texarkana)

Holland (R-Greenwood)

J. Hutchinson (R-Little Rock)

K. Ingram (D-West Memphis)

D. Johnson (D-Little Rock)

J. Key (R-Mountain Home)

M. Lamoureux (R-Russellville)

U. Lindsey (D-Fayetteville)

Maloch (D-Magnolia)

B. Pierce (D-Sheridan)

Rapert (R-Bigelow)

B. Sample (R-Hot Springs)

D. Sanders (R-Little Rock)

Teague (D-Nashville)

R. Thompson (D-Paragould)

E. Williams (R-Cabot)

J. Woods (R-Springdale)

D. Wyatt (D-Batesville)

Nays: 8:

Bledsoe (R-Rogers)

A. Clark (R-Lonsdale)

Cooper (R-Jonesboro)

J. Hendren (R-Sulphur Springs)

Hester (R-Cave Springs)

Irvin (R-Mountain View)

B. King (R-Green Forest)

G. Stubblefield (R-Branch)

Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/21/2014

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