Arkansas lawmakers did what they said they'd do, voting last week to end a program a majority of them clearly supported.
Then, as promised, Gov. Asa Hutchinson resurrected it by vetoing the line in the legislation that would have killed it.
We're talking here about Arkansas Works, the renamed and reworked Medicaid expansion plan that provides health insurance to more than 250,000 Arkansas residents.
Their health care was swinging in the balance as 10 state senators refused last week to vote for the necessary appropriation to fund the program.
Those senators held fast to that position, but enough of them were willing to vote later to "kill" the program, even if they knew a veto was coming.
Sure enough, the governor vetoed that critical line as soon as the legislation hit his desk on Thursday. The result is that Arkansas Works should now be funded, as will regular Medicaid.
The governor and lawmakers, some Democrats and some Republicans, were all in cahoots on the procedural maneuver.
This was the strategy: Appropriations require a three-quarters vote in both chambers of the Legislature and those 10 senators could -- and did -- block a straight-up vote to fund Arkansas Works.The funding was included in the appropriation bill that also covered regular Medicaid. So neither regular Medicaid, for the poorest of the state's citizens, nor the expansion program, aimed at those with incomes below 138 percent of the federal poverty level, was being funded.
The "fix" proposed by Hutchinson and lawmakers who worked with him was to include a line in the overall Medicaid funding bill that would have literally ended the Medicaid expansion program. The governor promised veto to strike that language from the bill and his veto could be upheld by a simple majority of lawmakers, not the supermajority required to pass the appropriation.
The drama isn't completely over.
The override attempt should happen this week as the Legislature resumes the fiscal session and takes up the rest of the state budget. It might even have been voted on Tuesday.
And then there is a standing threat of legal challenge to the end-around play that secured the funding.
Plus, the Obama administration will still have to agree to waivers to let Arkansas Works operate as proposed.
Formerly known as the "private option," the expansion plan was conceived a few years back by Republican legislative leaders and former Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe. It allowed the state to accept federal Affordable Care Act dollars to buy private insurance for eligible Arkansans.
These are the controversial Obamacare dollars, provided initially to pay 100 percent of the program cost but due to cost the state 5 percent next year and incrementally more until the state's cost maxes out at 10 percent.
Gov. Hutchinson didn't instantly embrace the idea but helped persuade lawmakers last year to keep it alive while a task force looked at reforms.
Funding has never been easy, even though the availability of the money has made a significant difference in the state's overall budget.
The problem isn't that most people don't favor the program. The problem is that ridiculous three-fourths vote requirement.
This year's action to overcome that obstacle and save the program was definitely the most unusual.
But, as Hutchinson has acknowledged, this Republican governor now "owns" Arkansas Works. It is his to defend and to preserve in an ever-more-difficult, divided political environment.
Commentary on 04/27/2016