Griffin, Crawford Enter ‘Private Option’ Expansion Debate

Congressmen Tim Griffin (R) and Rick Crawford (R) have both injected themselves in the Arkansas legislature’s debate on the “private option,” which has cleared the two chambers but awaits a vote on its funding.

In an email to Arkansas legislators today, Crawford writes:

Fellow conservatives,

I applaud you for your vote yesterday against speeding ahead with entitlement expansion in Arkansas. While some portray the Arkansas Plan as a private-sector solution, I think explaining how 100 percent tax-payer funding, borrowed from countries like China no less, is somehow private sector. The bill you voted against yesterday even states this isn’t an entitlement. But does it pass the smell test that state spending of federal entitlement dollars isn’t entitlement spending because a bill claims it isn’t? Some may call that spin.

I know some of you have asked for more time to consider whether entitlement expansion in Arkansas makes sense. Governor Beebe rejects the notion that thoughtful consideration should be a factor. Instead, he has resorted to DC-style political hardball. Medicaid expansion is one of the biggest issues to come before the Legislature in the past quarter century yet he demands that 1) it be tucked into a must-pass agency spending measure and 2) lawmakers not be allowed more time to make a thoughtful decision based on all the facts. The arguments Governor Beebe is using sound eerily similar to those Speaker Pelosi made when she rammed ObamaCare through the U.S. House.

I’ll conclude by noting that a vote against the funding measure isn’t a vote ‘to do nothing.’ Instead, you have an opportunity to use this rejection – and the national spotlight Arkansas has at this time – to help raise the profile of the true cost of ObamaCare and the insanity of rushing ahead with $1.3 trillion in new entitlement spending in the middle of a debt crisis. In fact, I am extending an open invitation to use my office to arrange interviews with national media organizations to highlight your bold move to put America first and your willingness to speak out against President Obama’s insistence of rushing ahead with $1.3 trillion in new entitlement spending.

Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help. – Rick

At a hearing this morning on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Cong. Griffin quizzed U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who has given tacit approval to Arkansas’ plan to use Medicaid expansion funds to subsidize low-income workers in a forthcoming health insurance exchange. This is the crux of the “private option” plan. (You can view video of the exchange at the bottom of this post).

Griffin, who said he wanted to see “permanent, lasting reforms all over the country,” referenced the “private option” legislation from Arkansas when he had this exchange in today’s House Ways and Means committee:

Griffin: Have you seen the bill that is floating around?

Sebelius: No sir.

Griffin: In this bill and the vote’s coming soon. It’s passed the Senate and coming up in the House soon – at least the appropriation for it. The bill itself passed yesterday. If this passes, have you decided whether or not to approve it?

Sebelius: No sir.

Griffin: Are you waiting…  So it’s not approved?

Sebelius: Well, I’m a former legislator, a former Governor, as you know. Anticipating what any legislative body may do before they do it is probably not a very beneficial expenditure of time.

Later today, the Arkansas House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on an appropriation bill to fund the “private option” plan that has passed. It will require 75 votes for passage.

Yesterday, the enabling legislation for the plan received 62 and 63 votes in two separate bills that outlined the measure.