Hey-the game’s over!

— Did you hear what the governor said the other day? Let me tell you, in case you missed it.

Here’s the quote: “We try to leave the politics out in the hallway when we make these decisions. In the end, it comes down to are you going to allow your people to have additional Medicaid money that comes at no cost to us, or aren’t you? We’re thinking, yes, we should.”

Sounds just like ol’ Mike Beebe, doesn’t it?

Except it wasn’t. Those were the words of Jack Dalrymple. He’s the governor of North Dakota. He’s the Republican governor of North Dakota.

All right, then. So here is a different quote from the governor.

“Saying ‘no’ to this plan would not save these federal dollars from being spent or direct them to deficit reduction. No, Arizona’s tax dollars would simply be passed to another state-generating jobs and providing health care for citizens in California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico or any other expansion state. . . . With this move, we will secure a federal revenue stream to cover the costs of the uninsured who already show up in our doctors’ offices and emergency rooms.”

That was a typographical error, right? Arizona? I meant Arkansas, right?

No. Those could well have been the words of Beebe. He has spoken words not unlike them.

But they weren’t.

Those were the words of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, and not just any Republican. She was the signer of draconian anti-immigrant legislation.

She is famous for a photograph showing her wagging her finger at President Barack Obama on a tarmac.

In other states, you see, being Republican doesn’t necessarily mean being devoid of logic.

Nor does it mean leaving your state’s poor people underserved in health care as compared with poor people in the rest of the country. Nor does it mean subjecting your hospitals-indeed, your entire state economy-to constrictions easily avoided in other states.

In the Arkansas General Assembly, these issues currently remain open only because of our local varietal of Republican know-nothingism. And the people of the state should not put up with it.

———

Being conservative is one thing. Being fiscally responsible is one thing. Professing to cut off your nose to spite your face is something quite different, bad for both your missing nose and your incomplete face.

Arkansas Republican legislators are down to one credible point. It’s that the federal fiscal situation is so volatile-with crises looming over the debt ceiling, sequestration and a continuing resolution to fund the government-that we cannot reasonably be confident of the existing federal provisions to pay 100 percent of expansion for three years and then begin drawing down to 90 percent by 2020.

If it weren’t for that bit of mathematical worry, the otherwise reasonable House Speaker Davy Carter would be down to nothing on which to base his supposed uncertainty, which is mostly a political acquiescence to his irrational right flank.

Actually, Gov. Brewer of Arizona has thought of that.

She proposes in her Medicaid expansion to impose a “circuit breaker.” If the promised levels of federal aid should come to be reduced, then the eligibility rolls for the expansion programs in Arizona would be reduced proportionately.

A couple of Arkansas Republican legislators responded that federal case law says you can’t jerk a Medicaid program once it’s been started.

OK.

But that’s not to say that you can’t reduce the breadth of application of programs in order to reduce recipients and save money to plug operating deficits.

For example: We could have kicked Level 3 nursing-home recipients off Medicaid. We didn’t. And we won’t.

But we could have.

This debate is essentially over. It remains technically open in Arkansas only while Republican legislators try to latch on to some other twig.

We have 161,000 adults in Arkansas who work but make too much money for our stingy Medicaid, but less than the federal poverty rate. And they would stand alone without health insurance if we, immorally, declined to accept this federally funded Medicaid expansion.

We also have hospitals that need insured patients instead of nonpaying ones.

We also have a state economy that could put some new federal health dollars into helpful circulation.

All we need is for Republican legislators to quit standing around on the field waiting to play an overtime period that’s not going to happen, considering that they lost in regulation.

John Brummett’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email

him at [email protected]. Read his blog at brummett.arkansasonline.com, or his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.

Editorial, Pages 15 on 01/17/2013

Upcoming Events