Gov. Hutchinson: Special sessions could be combined; King, Lee celebrations should be separated

Gov. Asa Hutchinson said the state could combine health care and highways into one special session this year, while the state should celebrate the birthdays of Dr. Martin Luther King and Gen. Robert E. Lee separately.

During a press availability in his office Wednesday, Hutchinson said he is meeting with Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell Feb. 1 to discuss Arkansas’ waiver for Arkansas Works. That’s his proposed replacement for the private option, the program that uses federal Medicaid dollars to purchase private insurance for Arkansans with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level. He said he will be accompanied on the visit by Arkansas Speaker of the House Jeremy Gillam, Senate President Pro Tempore Jonathan Dismang, and Dr. Greg Bledsoe, Arkansas’ surgeon general.

The private option serves about 200,000 Arkansans and is paid for almost entirely by federal funds, with Arkansas expected to pay for 5% starting in 2017, a number that increases to 10% by 2020. It was created through a federal waiver in 2013 and reauthorized in 2014. In 2015, legislators agreed to Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s request to fund the program through the end of 2016 while he works with a legislative task force to consider a next move in the context of overall Medicaid reform.

Hutchinson said the waivers must allow Arkansas Works to emphasize more personal responsibility and work along with greater program integrity. Under current federal law, the state cannot require enrollees to work in order to receive benefits. However, Hutchinson wants the waiver to require DHS to refer able-bodied enrollees to work training programs that would be administered by the Department of Workforce Services. Asked if the waiver would require enrollees to participate in those programs, he said, “We’re going to ask for as much requirement as we can. We’ll see what we wind up with.”

Enrollment, he said, “is not designed to be permanent. It is designed to help people for a time as they move up the economic ladder.”

Hutchinson was asked about the consistency of his support for continued Medicaid expansion while opposing the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, which makes the expansion possible. He said the debate on creating Obamacare occurred many years ago.

“If I would have been in Congress when the Affordable Care Act came into being, I would have voted against it,” he said. “Since then, we’ve had a lot of water under the bridge, and we have to deal with our current health care system that’s been modified under the Affordable Care Act for the last four or five years.”

Congress was expected to vote Wednesday to send a repeal of the Affordable Care Act to President Obama, which he will veto. Hutchinson said he has not read that legislation. He said he would like to see a reduction of the federal role in health care with more state discretion to manage Medicaid through a block grant program.

Hutchinson will call a special session later in the year where legislators will consider Arkansas Works as well as other aspects of Medicaid reform. That special session could also include a discussion of highway funding.

In December, a task force appointed by Hutchinson presented options that would increase funding. Hutchinson said Wednesday that he will announce his own recommendations Jan. 19. He reiterated his position that any proposal must be revenue neutral – in other words, if it increases revenues for highways, then cuts must be made elsewhere in the budget. He said the new federal highway bill passed late in 2015 makes $200 million available to Arkansas highways, but the state must find about $50 million to match it.

He said health care and highways could be included in the same special session or could occur in separate sessions.

Hutchinson said he hoped the Legislature in 2017 will separate the holidays that now together mark the birthdays of King, the civil rights leader, and Lee, the Confederate Civil War general. Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama combine the celebrations on the same day, which will be Jan. 18 this year. He said he had supported efforts to separate the holidays when the issue came up in the Legislature in 2015.

“As to this year, I’m certainly going to be celebrating Martin Luther King’s special day,” he said. “I’ll be attending Martin Luther King events and celebrating the great contributions that he has made to this country. … It’s important that that day be distinguished and separate and focused on that civil rights struggle and what he personally did in that effort.”

Hutchinson said he will be attending the Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show in Las Vegas Jan. 21-22. The SHOT Show is the world’s largest firearms trade show, and he said he would go there to recruit firearms manufacturers to Arkansas.

Hutchinson said he opposed Obama’s executive orders, announced this week, meant to increase licensing requirements of gun show dealers and to enact other gun control measures. He said new regulations coming from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Justice Department, and other federal agencies will restrict the rights of law-abiding gun owners and not accomplish the objectives of reducing criminal behavior and terrorism. He said Obama’s bypassing of Congress is “an affront to the legislative process.”

“I have no confidence in the regulations that are being proposed by this administration when it comes to having more burdens on honest, law-abiding citizens who want to purchase firearms,” he said.

In other business, Hutchinson said the state’s county jail backup has been reduced from almost 3,000 prisoners to 1,142 as a result of efforts to reduce overcrowding. Five new regional Department of Veterans Affairs offices have been opened across the state ahead of schedule. He continues to support Gov. Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign despite Huckabee’s low poll numbers.

He said he expects to begin interviewing applicants to replace current Department of Human Services Director John Selig by mid-January.