Category Archives: Health care

The year’s top posts

Happy new year! Here are independentarkansas’ most-read posts from 2018.

Jim Hendren Joyce Elliott

How to disagree agreeably about the NFL anthem controversy. Here’s how Sen. Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs, a conservative Republican Senate leader, and Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, who grew up in segregated schools, handle their differences on that hot-button issue. By far the year’s top-performing post.

Your pharmacist doesn’t want to see you now. Read how changes in pharmacy benefit manager disbursements left Arkansas druggists struggling to turn a profit. Legislators later met in special session to address the issue, but you can bet it won’t go away.

Why five legislators are going to jail. Another one has since been indicted, and the investigation is continuing.

Project Zero

How one video changed a life. A report by KTHV’s Dawn Scott led one couple to provide a home for a young man who needed a family. It’s the fourth-biggest performing post despite being online less than three weeks.


Obamacare ruling: Next 20 years more important than next two

Seema Verna

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verna hands a waiver to Gov. Asa Hutchinson allowing the state to require Arkansas Works recipients to work. Hutchinson opposes Obamacare but has championed the Arkansas Works program created as a result of the law.

By Steve Brawner, © 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

How significant was the federal judge’s ruling last week that Obamacare is unconstitutional? We might not know for another two years, but the bigger question is, what happens in the next 20?

The judge ruled in a lawsuit that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is unconstitutional because the U.S. Supreme Court’s original reasoning could no longer stand.

Back in 2013, the Supremes ruled the individual mandate to buy health insurance is constitutional because the penalty for not doing so is a “tax.”

In December, Congress repealed the penalty when it passed the Tax Cut and Jobs Act. A Texas-led coalition of 20 states, including Arkansas under Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, sued arguing that without the penalty, there’s no tax, which means Obamacare itself is no longer constitutional.

Texas Judge Reed O’Connor agreed, though he did not issue an injunction, which means nothing happens while the ruling is under appeal. Now the case winds its way through the system, perhaps ending at the Supreme Court. Continue reading →

Beebe defends his fellow governor

Mike Beebe

Govs. Mike Beebe, left, and Mike Huckabee share memories at the 20th anniversary celebration of the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement.

By Steve Brawner, © 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Former Govs. Mike Huckabee and Mike Beebe have similar names but different personalities and outlooks, but one area where they agree is this: Being governor is “the best job in the world.”

That’s how Huckabee described it during a joint appearance Monday during a 20-year celebration of the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement. Beebe immediately agreed.

It was more than a reunion of two former governors. When Huckabee was in office, Beebe was the most powerful state senator, and they worked together to pass bills such as the legislation creating ARKids First, which provides health insurance to lower-income children.

Also on hand were two of the state’s four other still-living governors: current Gov. Asa Hutchinson, whom Beebe defeated in 2010, and Jim Guy Tucker. The other two are Bill Clinton and David Pryor. Continue reading →

This could make the legislative session even crazier

By Steve Brawner, © 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Things get crazy when 135 legislators gather at the Capitol to consider thousands of bills in three months’ time. Sometimes something happens that makes things crazier.

This upcoming legislative session, it could be the same issue that’s caused much of the craziness the past almost six years: Arkansas Works. This time, there’s a special reason why.  Continue reading →

For now, Arkansas bends the cost curve

By Steve Brawner, © 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

When policymakers discuss health care, they often talk about “bending the cost curve” rather than “cutting costs.” That’s because costs have increased so much, for so long, and seemingly so inevitably, that anything beyond “bending” sounds unrealistic.

In recent days, Arkansas has made two announcements indicating it actually is bending the cost curve, at least temporarily. In fact, in one way it even cut costs.

On Aug. 3, the Arkansas Insurance Department announced next year’s rate increase requests made by insurers on the insurance exchange. That’s the online marketplace for individuals and small businesses created by the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. It’s where I buy my family’s insurance. Continue reading →