Arkansas governor saves Medicaid with veto

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Thursday effectively saved Arkansas’ first-in-the-nation hybrid Medicaid expansion by voiding part of a budget bill that would have ended the subsidized insurance for more than 250,000 poor people.

The Republican governor vetoed a provision in the Medicaid budget that ordered a Dec. 31 end to the program, which uses federal funds to purchase private insurance for the poor.

“A lot of courage on all sides of this issue led to this result today,” Hutchinson told reporters after issuing the veto.

Arkansas was the first state to win approval for its hybrid Medicaid program, created three years ago as an alternative to expanding Medicaid under President Barack Obama’s health care law.

Hutchinson’s move ended a standoff over the program. A handful of Republicans had earlier tried to block the program by refusing to approve a Medicaid budget bill that funded it.

To get around opposition by some conservative Republicans, Hutchinson and legislative leaders devised an unusual parliamentary move that required supporters of the program to back a provision ending it. Democrats, who unanimously support the Medicaid expansion, reluctantly agreed to the maneuver. It also had the backing of some Republicans who opposed the program and had advocated its defunding.

“We put the people of Arkansas first,” House Minority Leader Michael John Gray, a Democrat from Augusta, said in a statement. “Democrats stood together to protect the well-being of children and families across our state.”