Out on the playground

The state’s beleaguered Democratic legislative caucus has decided to flex its muscle, but has none.

The effect is equal parts nonsensical and cute, like tykes playing war at recess with toy guns.

—————— There aren’t enough Democrats left in the Arkansas General Assembly to do anything except block appropriations requiring a three-fourths vote. But that would be merely destructive and politically unwise. Anyway, Democrats favor spending money, not blocking it.

But now, all of sudden, legislative Democrats have become passiveaggressive on the epic and essential issue of Medicaid expansion, also known as the private option or “Arkansas Works.”

They are saying they are tired of being taken for granted. They are saying Gov. Asa Hutchinson needs to get his Republican house in order before he starts assuming as usual that he can count on their votes.

They are saying the governor can’t put all these conservative touches on the private option and expect Democrats to keep falling faithfully and sheepishly in line as they have fallen time after time in umpteen roll calls since 2013.

They are saying the governor’s people and House leaders are always taking counts on Republican votes for expansion—falling nine short right now in the House, and two or three short in the Senate, assuming, as always, that all the Democrats are “yesses.” They are saying they are tired of not being asked.

They are saying maybe they will try to tone down some of these conservative touches that Hutchinson is seeking to apply to the private option to appeal for a few right-wing Republican votes.

Maybe they’ll turn up their noses to provisions to refer private-option enrollees to work training, or make them get their health insurance from employers where relevant, or demand they pay a small premium if they have incomes exceeding the poverty level, or require that they lose the current 90-day retroactivity in coverage when they go on the private option.

And they’re saying maybe they could trade their support for Medicaid for something peripheral, popular, important and reflective of their values—restoration of local library funding, perhaps, or an increase in pre-K spending, or a restoration of community health-center spending.

It all seems so positively logical and noble … except for the fact that the Democrats have no leverage to extract any of that, or anything.

Those conservative touches that Hutchinson seeks to put on the private option can only become realities if the Obama administration grants waivers to permit them.

So what are Arkansas legislative Democrats going to do if, as is likely, the Obama administration grants those waivers? Will they call a news conference in the Capitol rotunda to announce that Barack Obama is entirely too conservative and bipartisan and Republican-obliging for their tastes?

Anyway, the waivers won’t be onerous. The work-training referral is voluntary. The rest of it is more on the order of inconvenience than draconian. None of it seems sufficiently compelling for Arkansas Democrats to draw a line.

Most important of all is this inevitable fact: Arkansas legislative Democrats are not going to vote against health insurance for a quarter-million poor people. They simply aren’t. I know it. You know it. They know it. The governor knows it.

Thus their votes can be taken fully for granted. They threaten nothing.

What do they say after they say “or else?”

Or else what? Show us more respect or else some poor people can kiss their Blue Cross goodbye?

Sometimes you simply must leave politics at the door and do what you know to be right. All of the foregoing may be moot anyway. Hutchinson may not be able to get enough votes from his right wing to save this essential program in the special session he’s called April 13.

Turmoil would ensue for hospitals and the state budget. Poor working families would walk around newly uninsured by the tens of thousands.

Being taken for granted in opposition to such madness should not be considered an insult. Arkansas legislative Democrats should wear the assumption of their support for the private option as a matter of pride. They should leave irresponsible threats to this vital program to the Republicans.

Games can be played some other day on some less dangerous playground.