Lawmakers get prime health-care benefits
State-sponsored plans more robust, cheaper
The Arizona Legislature takes a hard line when it comes to spending taxpayer money on health care.
During its recent session, it passed measures seeking to limit lifetime Medicaid eligibility and to prohibit Arizona from establishing a state-based marketplace where residents could buy health insurance subsidized by the federal government. Some lawmakers have signed onto a lawsuit seeking to overturn Arizona’s Medicaid expansion.
But those cost-conscious measures don’t apply to the lawmakers’ own government-subsidized health care.
Arizona lawmakers serve the public in a part-time role, but the vast majority of these elected officials take year-round healthinsurance plans that are among the most generous state-funded benefits in the nation.
“I don’t think there is anything inconsistent about getting health-care coverage from one’s employer and eliminating a government subsidy for an entitlement program.”
STATE REP. JUSTIN OLSON, R-MESA WHO CHOSE COVERAGE THROUGH A STATE-FUNDED HEALTH-INSURANCE PLAN INSTEAD OF VIA HIS PRIVATE EMPLOYER, APOLLO EDUCATION GROUP, WHICH OWNS THE UNIVERSITY OF PHOENIX
Most Arizona state lawmakers take those benefits, with 25 of 30 senators and 45 of 60 representatives now enrolled in state-sponsored healthinsurance plans with coverage more robust and less expensive than what the average Arizona resident gets from private employers.
Elected members of Arizona’s Senate and House of Representatives, their staff and dependents billed and were reimbursed by statesponsored health-insurance plans for more than $8 million in medical claims the past 21⁄ years,
2 according to Arizona Department of Administration records obtained by The Arizona Republic.
Lawmakers passed bills this year that could eliminate health-insurance coverage for some Arizona residents, and a group of legislators filed a lawsuit to overturn Medicaid coverage for more than 300,000 low-income residents.
Last month, Gov. Doug Ducey signed House Bill 2643, which forbids Arizona from setting up its own Affordable Care Act health-insurance marketplace. A pending U.S. Supreme Court case, King vs. Burwell, could eliminate federal subsidies that make health insurance affordable for about 150,000 Arizona residents. States that establish their own health-insurance marketplaces could preserve subsidies, but HB 2643 bars that from happening. Ducey has said he will have a plan in the event those Arizonans lose health coverage, but he has offered no details.
Arizona lawmakers also passed Senate Bill 1092, which would impose work requirements and limit lifetime eligibility for Medicaid recipients. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services must approve a waiver request for those limits to take effect.
Arizona’s Medicaid program, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, will file a waiver request that includes SB 1092 requirements with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services by Oct 1. It’s unknown whether the federal agency will approve the eligibility restrictions, but the state’s Medicaid contract would not start before Oct. 1, 2016, according to Monica Coury, AHCCCS’ assistant director of intergovernmental relations.
Finally, a group of 36 GOP state lawmakers in 2013 sued to overturn Arizona’s Medicaid expansion, which extended health-insurance coverage to about 330,000 lowincome residents. ThenGov. Jan Brewer pushed for the expansion, which was funded by the federal government and a special assessment paid by hospitals. The lawmakers contend the assessment is a tax that requires the Legislature to meet a twothirds supermajority to enact the expansion for low-income Arizonans.
Is it hypocritical?
Some lawmakers say they don’t see the need to debate their own stateprovided benefits, despite voting or suing to limit coverage for others.
“I don’t think there is anything inconsistent about getting health-care coverage from one’s employer and eliminating a government subsidy for an entitlement program,” said Rep. Justin Olson, RMesa, who chose coverage through a state-funded health-insurance plan instead of via his private employer, Apollo Education Group, which owns the University of Phoenix.
Olson said he co-sponsored HB 2643, which forbids a state-based healthinsurance marketplace, because he hopes “to increase options for consumers” other than the Affordable Care Act. Olson is also among the 36 GOP legislators who are suing to overturn the Medicaid expansion.
Other lawmakers conceded that the public might be upset when lawmakers make healthpolicy decisions that could eliminate coverage for some people, but not themselves.
“If I was a constituent and I was faced with losing my health care because of a policy decision, I would say it is absolutely hypocritical of them (legislators) to keep their (health insurance),” said Sen. Katie Hobbs, D- Phoenix, who voted against HB 2643 and SB 1092. Hobbs said she has the state’s UnitedHealthcare plan.
Tim Hogan, an attorney with the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, argues that legislators should consider their own situation when enacting laws that could restrict health access for others. Hogan is representing four Medicaid recipients who are defending the expansion in the lawsuit brought by the group of dissenting legislators.
“They should consider themselves lucky that there is health insurance available to them,” Hogan said. “As a result of receiving the benefits, it seems like they ought to think long and hard about attempting to restrict the availability of health care for others.”
Premium benefits
State lawmakers have eight options they can choose from, and all gen- erally offer robust benefits at lower costs than what lawmakers could get from the private sector. In other words, they typically spend less of their own money on health care with a state-sponsored health plan compared with a plan through a private employer or the private market. Some examples:
State lawmakers, who work part time, have access to the same health plans that cover state