Hutchinson joins Trump D.C. health care session

Gov. Asa Hutchinson and other governors were summoned to the White House on Monday to discuss options with President Donald Trump’s administration for improving the health care system and reducing longterm costs for the state and across the nation, the governor said Monday.

The call for Hutchinson to attend what he described in a written statement as “a working session” at the White House meant the Republican governor couldn’t attend events Monday morning in Bentonville for an emerging leaders program and in Siloam Springs for a Simmons Foods facility ribbon cutting, said Hutchinson spokesman J.R. Davis.

Davis said he didn’t have details about which other governors and Trump administration officials attended.

The Associated Press reported that Hutchinson joined Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, both Republicans, for talks on Monday

with Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana.

A full list of attending governors was not immediately available.

Hutchinson said in his written statement that “governors have a hands-on perspective, and I appreciate the White House’s acknowledgement of the importance of our viewpoint and their willingness to listen.

“It was a productive working session, and I am encouraged that there is a new commitment to find a solution that is inclusive of the governors,” Arkansas’ governor said.

Cassidy told Politico that everyone in attendance was seeking a “path forward” on health care.

The meeting involving the governors and the Trump administration came on the heels of the Republican-controlled Senate’s failure last week to find at least 50 votes to approve legislation to repeal and replace the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or for the so-called skinny repeal.

U.S. Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, cast the deciding vote Friday morning against the “skinny repeal” that would have eliminated the mandate for individuals to buy insurance, suspended a requirement for businesses to provide employee insurance, delayed a tax on medical devices, and denied funding to Planned Parenthood for a year. McCain subsequently called for the Senate to work with both parties on a new proposal.

But the White House is insisting that the Senate resume efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

A plan proposed by Cassidy and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., would keep most of the Affordable Care Act’s taxes except the medical device tax, send federal health care funds to the states in block grants, eliminate the requirement for individuals to buy insurance, and maintain protections for people with pre-existing conditions, according to Politico.

Two weeks ago, Hutchinson said he worried that reworked health care legislation in the Senate represented “a cost shift to the states.” He also opposed phasing out the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced funding for Medicaid expansion, which covers about 300,000 low-income Arkansans. He credited the Medicaid expansion, known as Arkansas Works, with helping hold down premiums in the market for individual insurance coverage.

The federal government paid for the entire Medicaid expansion program from 2014-16, and the state is paying 5 percent of the cost of the program this year. Under current federal law, the state’s tab will rise to 10 percent of the cost of the program in 2020.

A full list of attending governors was not immediately available.