Becky Gillette – On April 13 a special session begins in the Arkansas Legislature that will determine if about 267,000 people in the state will continue to be covered by the Private Option Medicaid expansion. Legislators representing the Eureka Springs area, Sen. Bryan King and Rep. Bob Ballinger, said they plan to vote against continuing the Private Option. Their votes are particularly important because it takes a 75 percent vote to approve funding bills. King is counted as one of nine or ten senators opposed to the Private Option, and only nine are needed to kill the program.
Both legislators said the expansion is too expensive, and that costs for healthcare add to the national debt.
“The Private Option Medicaid expansion is a marriage between big business and big government,” King said. “We are spending this nation into doom.”
“It is an expansion of government,” Ballinger said. “It is a lot more spending. Every dollar we take of federal money comes from borrowed money. We can’t continue to borrow money and burden our children with it. We need to find ways to help people that don’t put a burden on our children.”
The Private Option, developed with the hope of passing in a conservative Red state, barely squeaked by to be approved. Initially 100 percent of the cost of the program comes from the federal government, with the state’s share gradually increasing to 10 percent in years ahead. Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), often called Obamacare, Blue states expanded their traditional Medicaid program to provide coverage to millions of Americans, but most Red states did not.
Without legislative budget approval, the Arkansas program that purchases health insurance for low income people ends at the end of 2016, which would leave about 267,000 people without coverage and ineligible for government-subsidized health insurance available to people with higher incomes. There are fears people losing their health insurance wouldn’t be able to afford timely care, and would end up waiting until they were very sick and going to the emergency room where hospitals are required to provide treatment regardless of ability to pay. People could end up not being able to work because of illnesses that could have been successfully treated.
The argument about not being able to afford to provide healthcare coverage doesn’t cut it with Dr. John House, chief of staff at the Eureka Springs Hospital and a family practice physician at the Washington Regional Family Clinic. House said if the U.S. stopped spending huge amounts of money on overseas military campaigns, “bombing the hell out of foreign countries,” there would be plenty of money to provide healthcare for all Americans.
Ballinger suggested that if the 267,000 people lose coverage, they could go to free clinics like the ECHO (Eureka Springs Health Outreach) Clinic run by volunteers.
“At the ECHO Clinic they care about you and feed you a meal,” Ballinger said. “You are shown real love rather than charity. The government sees a need, steps in to provide solution, but that is not always the best solution. The best solution is the ECHO clinic. What we need to do is provide more of that. That is the way real healthcare will be fixed.”
Dr. Dan Bell, medical director of the ECHO Clinic, said they are pleased Ballinger thinks so highly of ECHO.
“But people need a lot more care than we can provide them,” Bell said. “We are there a couple days out of the month. Patients need more than we can give them in two days a month. We can take care of basic things, but not emergencies, surgical procedures or specialty consultation. Those are the things that get neglected and get people in trouble. What is best for patients is to have full coverage where they can get timely care and comprehensive care.”
Bell said hospitals in Arkansas have been losing millions in uncompensated charity care. Having patients insured has been good for the bottom line of hospitals, helping them stay open.
“The Private Option is clearly good for Arkansas bringing in a tremendous amount of federal funding to help us,” Bell said. “It is real clear it is in the best interests of the whole state.”
ECHO uses the same benchmark to providing care as the Private Option. Someone can make up to 138 percent of the poverty level, or about $1,000 a month, and be eligible. A family of four can make about $2,000 per month. Bell estimated almost a third of the people in Carroll County fall in that category.
Bell has seen patients improve dramatically with better care under the Private Option.
“People who were completely disabled have gotten hips replaced so they can walk again,” Bell said. “We have people with serious problems such as prostate and colon cancer, get the care they need. One of the things we do at ECHO is help patients get on the Private Option. In fact, we push people to do that. If they won’t apply, we won’t see them. We are their safety net, but we help them get better coverage with the Private Option. It would be a real tragedy if that were no longer available. The Private Option was a very good idea. The country has looked at what we have done.”
Bell asks the question: What would these legislators want for themselves and their families? Just be seen at a free Christian clinic for health needs? “It is real clear what they would want for themselves and their family, and to vote contrary for these other folks is not a Christian thing,” he said. “It is counter to doing the right thing for your fellow man. Many voting against the Private Option are fundamentalist Christians and are getting crossways with their belief system.”