Tolbert: Family Council Injects Same Sex Marriage Into Private Option Debate

I will begin this post by saying that I have known Jerry Cox, director of Family Council of Arkansas, for quite some time.  I have always known him to be an honest man and appreciate the work he has done through Family Council on issues such as the sanctity of life, education issues, and traditional marriage.

However, I am dumbfounded as to why Family Council sent out a press release on the evening before what appears to be a very narrow vote in the Arkansas House on funding for the private option that seeks to inject the issue of same-sex marriage.

The only explanation I can find is to pour a little gas on an already hot debate.

“Does Medicaid Private Option Plan Cover Same Sex Couples?” asks the press release in the title.  The release says that Cox has sent letters today to state legislators asking if any public funds are being used to provide health insurance for Arkansas same-sex couples through the Medicaid Private Option Plan.

Cox points to a change made by Health Advantage, a licensee of Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield, that allows same-sex couples that have married in other states to qualify for family coverage.  This is a separate plan from the private option, but Cox nevertheless sent out a press release asking if this change applies to the private option.

The answer is pretty simple and required a phone conversation with a state legislator that lasted about a minute to confirm. No, it does not.  Why? Because the private option does not offer family coverage.

“The private option only offers plans for individuals. In other words, a family of four has a separate policy for each family member. There are no family plans and no opportunity for this to be an issue,” said Sen. Jonathan Dismang, one of the key senators involved in the private option.

I called Cox this evening to see if he had spoken to a state legislator about this before sending out a press release.  He had not.

“If I had thought any state legislator knew the answer I would have called them, but I did not,” explained Cox. “Instead, I felt it best to ask the question in a public forum so that all 135 legislators could examine the issue.”

Cox said he hoped the answer I was given was correct, but he still had questions as to if this was a feature of the private option legislation or if this was up to the private insurance companies.

As for the timing of the release, Cox told me that he did not know the vote on the private option was tomorrow until he heard it on the news this afternoon.  He told me that a “business associate” – he declined to say who – gave him a copy of the Health Advantage policy change recently and he wanted to make sure these concerns were answered before the vote on the appropriation.

The question seems to me to be a ridiculously simple one to answer with a “no” since there are not any family plans offered by the private option and could have been pretty easily dealt with by Cox asking this to any of a number of legislators that he knows personally and has a good relationship,  Instead, he insisted the press release was the best option.

Of course, the undertone is that defeating the private option is a top priority of the tea party movement.   Cox has increased the ties between Family Council and this movement. One example is the inclusion of a variety of issues on their voter guide such as the vote of the private option and on the Big River Steel project.  Throwing a bit of gas on the fire the night before the vote is certainly something that helps these ties.