Juxtaposition of two events -- an ongoing legislative session and the opening of the filing period for this year's elections -- could prove costly for the state's citizens.
Most directly impacted are the more than 87,000 low-income Arkansans who stand to lose newly acquired health insurance, although they aren't the only potential losers in the politically infused legislative session.
This is only the Legislature's third fiscal session ever. Some conflict was inevitable because such sessions convene in election years, but the political influences at work on this Legislature seem particularly strong.
It all relates to the ongoing national debate over the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, which is despised by many, although not all.
Arkansas lawmakers are debating whether to fund again this state's private option insurance program, which the Legislature created just a year ago as an alternative to part of the federal health care law.
Instead of directly expanding Medicaid rolls for more qualifying low-income people, the private option uses the federal Medicaid dollars to subsidize private insurance for Arkansas people whose earnings fall below 138 percent of the federal poverty level.
Republicans in the Legislature led a tough fight a year ago to create the private option, securing a hard-to-get three-quarters' vote in both houses. The federal government approved the program, which other conservative states have since looked to mimic.
In fact, Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat who worked with lawmakers to develop the program, spent part of last week explaining it to other governors at a national conference.
The private option debate is about what's best for Arkansas, Beebe emphasized, and will not affect what happens in Washington to keep or kill Obamacare.
The Arkansas Senate has reauthorized private option funding. But there is an ongoing impasse in the 100-member House of Representatives, where repeated efforts have fallen a few votes short of the 75 necessary to pass the appropriation. The House was supposed to try again on Tuesday but adjourned without taking it up.
A relative handful of lawmakers stand in the way of passage, as Beebe explained, noting not only the potential impact on those tens of thousands who have signed up for insurance but also on the state's general budget.
Not taking these Medicaid dollars will create an $89 million hole in the state's budget, forcing what Beebe called "draconian" cuts for the next fiscal year.
As the funding debate continues, this filing period looms. Filing opened Monday and ends at noon on March 3.
Some lawmakers fear a vote for the private option will encourage someone to run against them, especially during this time when attention is so focused on the legislative impasse. Some of them might be persuaded to vote for it after noon on March 3, but not now.
Legislators can't really twiddle their collective thumbs until the filing window closes, costing taxpayers money as they wait. Nor would leaders be wise to interrupt the session for such a purely political concern. So, they creep through less-controversial budget votes and try to break the impasse.
For the record, if lawmakers fail to reauthorize the program, some may still lose re-election. There are voters on the other side of the issue, too, in the general election if not the primaries.
Not authorizing the spending will end insurance for more than 87,000 people. It will also cause hospitals to have to absorb costs that those insurance dollars would have covered as non-insured people return to emergency rooms for unreimbursed care.
Any rewrite of the state's budget without the additional Medicaid dollars will cause cuts that will be felt by other Arkansans. The most obvious are college students who could pay tuition increases if state funding falls short for the colleges and universities.
So far, Beebe and legislative leaders have been so sure they could eventually win the votes to continue the private option, no one has tackled the full budget rewrite.
If and when they do, that will take time, time away from the campaign trail as lawmakers would have to extend this session.
At least, lawmakers resisted a related request from some of their colleagues to abandon the rule that prohibits House members from campaign fund-raising during a session.
Unable to raise money and stuck in Little Rock, those frustrated candidates should have added incentive to get the legislative work done -- preferably with the private option intact.
Commentary on 02/26/2014