Tolbert: The Math On The Private Option Vote; Can It Be Amended?

I want to make this as plain and simple as possible – there are simply not the necessary votes in the House (or the Senate) to pass an appropriation for the DHS Medicaid Budget that does not include funding for the private option.

I submit that this is a solid irrefutable fact.  If anyone disagrees, please give me a list of 75 House members who are willing to vote on an appropriation bill that defunds the Private Option.

Right now, there is a stalemate in the House as the number willing to vote for an appropriation bill with funding intact for the private option hovers around 73 votes depending on the mood of a couple House members – 2 votes shy of the amount needed for passage.

Various House members are rumored to be teetering on the fence between switching to a yes.  Reps. Skip Carnine, Mary Lou Slinkard, John Hutchison, Ann Clemmer have all expressed support for the plan in the past but have not signed on this go around. (Also Rep. Allen Kerr voted for it last time before almost immediately going back to opposing it)

As such, the DHS appropriation is sitting on the House floor in the form of two bills – HB1150 and SB111, which has passed the Senate with the necessary 27 votes.  The appropriation has been passed by a majority of the members of the Joint Budget Committee where a compromise was reached in the form of several amendments sponsored by Rep. Nate Bell.

For the impasse to broken, one of two things must happen.

First, 2 of 27 current no votes can join the 73 yes votes and pass SB111 as it is.  If this happens, the bill is passed and this is over.  We can all go home and live to fight another day.

Second, the bill is amended to some form of ending the private option.  Let’s talk about the possibility of this.

The compromise that those opposing the private option are supporting – an amendment offered by Rep. Ballinger and Sen. Hendren – ends the private option, but allows a short time before those currently enrolled lose their coverage.  Other discussions of compromise from the opponents – although I don’t believe any other versions have been drafted – vary some but all seem to share the component that the compromise they support will result in an eventual end to the private option.  The compromise component has more to do with time – immediate versus a phase-out – than it does with changing the existing program.

In order to accomplish this second path legislatively, what would have to happen next would be to either amend the existing bill or pass an entirely new bill.  A new bill would have to run through Joint Budget Committee again and obtain a majority vote.  It is important to note here that based on the votes this session on the current version of HB1150 and SB111 – 44 of 56 members of Joint Budget, or almost 80% of the committee – support continued funding for the private option.  The 12 opponents on the committee would have to swing 17 committee members from supporters to opponents of the private option, more than double the current votes they have on this committee.

The other option is to amend the bill either by sending it back to committee (see above ) or from the floor.  This gets tricky quickly with parliamentary rules since the regular process is to send bills through committee for debate.  If these parliamentary hoops of the House rules are jumped through, it can be done with a majority vote of the House for the amendment. This would mean that opponents would have to get either all 51 Republicans – including Speaker Carter – to agree to vote for the amendment or swing enough Democrats to vote for the amendment for every Republican they lose.

And then once this uphill battle is fought to finally get an amended DHS Medicaid appropriation bill to the House floor that does not including funding for the private option, this amended bill would require 75 of the 100 House members to vote to pass it.  That mean all 51 Republicans, plus 24 out of 49 Democrats – half of them – would have to vote for this appropriation bill that ends the program they support.

And then the same has to take place in the Senate.

I think the math is clear that the votes to do this do not exist.  I do not see anyone who honestly believes they have a chance to swing this number of votes during the fiscal session.  It is simply not possible.

So we will soon (or perhaps not so soon) see which scenario will happen:

Will 2 House members – some of whom have previously voted for private option funding in the past – vote yes for the sake of ending the stalemate?

Or will the 27 Republican House opponents flip 48 other House members including half the Democratic caucus and then repeat this task in the Senate?