Private option politics

As the last month before the Nov. 4 general election draws near, activity has resumed to kick around that political football known as the Arkansas Private Option. There have been many a scrum of Legislative hearings on the Private Option in Little Rock.

Almost every GOP Legislator with a seat on various joint House and Senate committees, some, who are attending purely as spectators, hoped to see some dismantling of the state’s hybrid Private Option.

It hasn’t happened.

Most of these GOP “anti-Private Optionites” have trudged back to their home districts with very little results for which they had so hoped.

More Arkansans are signing up. And younger people are entering the program, state Insurance Department officials say. The federal government, which controls Medicaid, seems to like the waiver the state was granted in trying out this innovative new program.

And less and less scandal has erupted than the anti-Private Option folks had predicted. A great number of the most ardent foes of the Private Option have tried to put on some feeble attempts at grandstanding at these meetings. Many come hoping to glean some negative facts to rush back home to scare voters heading to the polls. Certainly those folks who have an opponent facing them on the upcoming General Election ballot seem to be at every hearing, hoping to find some nugget of negativity to bolster their re-election.

This week, it seems, Arkansas’ four Republican Congressmen, kicked a very high but wobbly punt for the state GOP, trying to help their conservative wing in the state Legislature.
A very unusual and curious letter to the State of Arkansas, signed by all four GOP Congressmen, asked for information on the state’s insurance rates. That is sort of a backwards procedure. It is usually the often fact-less 135 state Legislators who have to stop their committee deliberations and write to the members of Arkansas’ Congressional Delegation for such statistical and financial information?

Hum? What is going on here?

Could it be that political football of Arkansas’ successful remedy to the dreaded federal health care program, known universally as Obamacare, possibly could make a small difference in the election outcomes on Nov. 4?

Maybe the state’s Congressional delegation was setting up for an onsides kick, to fool the Democrats. But one ever materialized. Were the GOP Congressmen trying to help Congressman Rick Crawford stay elected in eastern Arkansas? Was the letter a ploy to help Republican Asa Hutchinson find the Governor’s Mansion on this second try? Was this move to give Tom Griffin some “cover” against a surging Democrat John Burkhalter for Lt. Governor? Could this letter actually help Tom Cotton in his quest for the U.S. Senate seat? Or was it to ease Congressman Steve Womack’s fears of his race in NW Arkansas?

After the letter form the four GOP Congressmen, the outgoing Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe directed the state Insurance Department to expedite the release of the proposed rates. He would love to throw a TD bomb on Republicans a scant 30 days from the November vote. Does the savvy Beebe see this quick release of good news about the state’s Private Option benefiting progressives on Nov. 4?

The proposed rates for the Private Option, we all know, were inadvertently posted on-line a couple of weeks ago. That posting showed a decrease in premiums for the next year. But those rates were quickly taken down.

Now the letter from our Congressmen, it seems at first blush, got their facts all wrong. So why did they write this letter? It looks like the Americans for Prosperity, a right-wing group, has been giving the Congressional delegation misleading information.

The letter asked about “a wave of cancellations is coming this fall in Arkansas because of Obamacare and that consumers therefore need to begin to shop for alternatives for 2015 on the Marketplace.”

In fact, no plans have been cancelled due to Obamacare non-compliance in Arkansas, according to Arkansas Insurance Department Commissioner Jay Bradford, a former Democratic state Senator from Pine Bluff. Bradford and the Insurance Department also cleared the air that “no plans have been cancelled due to Obamacare non-compliance in Arkansas. And no one will be kicked off their plan due to Obamacare non-compliance this fall.” A change back in March, using a change in federal rule, allows the state to offer non-compliant plans through October 2016. This will allow consumers to keep their plans into the fall of 2017.

But we can’t hold the Congressmen responsible for knowing what the state government is doing.
All we do know is it looks like the Private Option is working. Almost 200,000 Arkansans, many younger aged than predicted, have signed up.

Who will get elected? I do not know.

Will the Private Option be a deciding factor at the polls?

I would think not.