Since the beginning of the year, Arkansas has been disenrolling members from Medicaid. At the end of last year, Congress passed legislation that ended the public health emergency that was enacted due to the pandemic. The legislation required that Medicaid enrollees who were only eligible as a result of the pandemic be disenrolled starting this year.
In an interview with Talk Business & Politics, House Minority Leader Tippi McCullough, D- Little Rock, said she has been concerned with how the process has gone.
“The process of forms is taking a long time. Then people are getting kicked off and reapplying to get back on so it’s such a complicated process that people are bound to fall through the cracks,” she said.
McCullough said this is the reason why she and other members of the legislature voted against a bill that allowed the state to complete the process in six months, instead of a year. She said she is concerned the rush in the process could leave children in the state without health insurance.
Audit
When asked about the recent purchase of an $18,000 lectern by Gov. Sarah Sanders, McCullough said an audit by the legislature would be helpful.
“If there’s any perception of any mistakes or misuse, we have our checks and balances. The legislature that’s our duty is to be one of those checks and balances,” she said.
Last week, Sen. and former Senate President Jimmy Hickey, R-Texarkana, sent a letter to leaders of the Joint Auditing Committee to request an audit for the governor’s purchase of the lectern.
Re-election
During the interview, McCullough also announced that she will be running for re-election but was not definitive when she was asked if she would continue to serve as House minority leader.
