http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/us/politics/in-arkansas-private-option-medicaid-plan-could-be-derailed.html?_r=0
"Last year, the Republicans who control this state's Legislature devised a politically palatable way to expand Medicaid under President Obama's health care law. They won permission to use federal expansion funds to buy private insurance for as many as 250,000 poor people instead of adding them to traditional Medicaid, which conservatives disparage as a broken entitlement program.
But just as the idea is catching fire in other states with Republican or divided leadership--Iowa has adopted a version of the plan, and New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Utah and other states are exploring similar avenues--Arkansas may abruptly reverse course, potentially leaving the 83,000 people who have signed up so far without insurance as soon as July 1.
Facing pressure from conservative challengers in the May primary, several Republicans who supported the plan last year are now considering switching their vote when the Legislature votes to reauthorize its financing, possibly as soon as next week. The defection of just one Republican could kill the program, state officials said.
'You've got a very small minority of people who can derail this,' said Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat who helped engineer the plan but will leave office at the end of the year because of term limits...
...The threat to the Arkansas plan, known as the private option, underscores how the Affordable Care Act is an increasingly potent issue not just in congressional races, but also in state legislative contests. Though Republican legislative leaders support the plan, which would bring $915 million in federal funds to the state this year, any policy linked to the health care law remains anathema to many conservative voters."
And conservative Republicans have only themselves to blame for this. They have done nothing for the past four years but whip up anti-ACA sentiment at every opportunity. Now Arkansas Republicans find themselves between a rock and a hard place. They have only two choices: 1. Support the ACA private option plan and take the chance of losing their legislative seat to a more conservative Republican, or 2. Vote to defund the plan and then try to explain to their constituents why they took away their health insurance.
Basically, it comes down to deciding between protecting the people they pledged to serve or deciding to throw those people under the bus in order to protect own their jobs.
At least one Senator has already chosen to sacrifice the people in her district for her own personal ambitions."State Senator Missy Irvin, a Republican who voted for the program last year, announced she would oppose reauthorizing the federal funds for it. Ms. Irvin is facing a primary challenge from an opponent who attacked her support of the private option as soon as he declared his candidacy on Jan. 29. Without her vote, the plan will need another supporter in the Senate to survive...
...For Amber Chote, (23), of Little Rock, who said she works three jobs to pay her rent and bills, getting insurance through the program has meant no longer having to go to the emergency room when she gets sick. 'Personally I feel like it's talking to children that are mad after losing a baseball game."
Which pretty much sums up modern-day politics--both state and federal--since the country elected a minority President in 2008.
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