SPRINGDALE - Gov. Mike Beebe told a room full of Northwest Arkansas business leaders Wednesday that the state had to make the best of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and that they should use their influence to support the state’s reaction to it in the form of the “private option” passed earlier this year by the Legislature.
He said the penalties for walking away from the Affordable Care Act would have been devastating for the state’s hospitals and businesses, especially coming out of the recession of 2008. He called the costs of care for the uninsured by the state’s hospitals a hidden tax on those with insurance.
Beebe made his comments during the annual meeting of the Northwest Arkansas Council, a nonprofit organization that promotes the region. Those in attendance included John Tyson, chairman of the board for Springdale-based Tyson Foods Inc., Mark Simmons, chairman of Siloam Springsbased Simmons Foods, and Jim Walton, chairman and CEO of Arvest Bank.
Under the Medicaid expansion approved by the state Legislature, commonly called the private option, those with incomes of up to 138 percent of the poverty level will be able to enroll in private insurance plans through an exchange and have the premiums paid by Medicaid. That income threshold is $15,860 for an individualor $32,500 for a family of four. An estimated 250,000 people will be eligible.
The private option also was established to offset millions of dollars in Medicare rate cuts to hospitals that came as part of the Affordable Care Act and to avert up to $38 million in federal penalties against some businesses.
Without the private option legislation, some of the state’s hospitals would have taken hard hits or possibly closedand some businesses would have likely folded, Beebe said.
Republican state Sen. Jim Hendren of Gravette said in a phone interview Wednesday that he voted against the legislation. He said he understood the reasoning of the governor and those who supported the private option, saying it made the best of a bad situation, but he thought that was a shortterm view.
He said in the long term the cost of the program will simplybe unsustainable.
Beebe said his primary focus as governor has been education and economic development but the state needed to deal with the problems at hand - in this case, health care.
He encouraged the business leaders to look through the rhetoric and use their influence to persuade and cajole those who represent them to support the measure.
“Do all you can,” Beebe said.
Business, Pages 21 on 06/27/2013