It's always better to utter the worst case scenarios early.
Because later on, when those worst-case scenarios become realities, one won't be accused of misleading, not being upfront, or down-right lying about the potential reality.
A better country-boy saying lawmakers might understand, is simply this: "With every fine hide, also comes the tail."
As the Task Force talks on the Arkansas Private Option -- a hybrid form of Obamacare began this past week -- Governor Hutchinson weighed in with some hard, random thoughts.
There are plenty of options, the committee of 40, was told.
One solution is, of course, scraping the Private Option program.
Hutchinson pretty much discussed that scenario in some rather plain words. This advisory group studying Arkansas' Medicaid program should explore alternatives that may include giving up the more than $1 billion in federal funding the state receives annually to provide coverage to more than 200,000 low-income adults.
But there is cause for concern, Hutchinson said: "You might have to swallow hard there, but I think it is important that we look at options and create options" that don't involve the enhanced Medicaid funding that pays for coverage under the so-called private option.
So what does that mean?
It could be that this group needs to find a solution that doesn't involve the federal funding.
However, one may see that release of the federal money as such a radical move that "might be what political reality is," Hutchinson said.
In other words: Many of our current state House and state Senate members ran for office hell bent on repealing the Private Option.
No doubt they will run again doing so in 2016.
Well will they do away with the Private Option? Will this task force turn down the federal subsidiary?
Hutchinson and some other legislative leaders, a few who were constantly opposed to the Private Option in the 88th and 89th General Assemblies, seemed to change their tune in the just-ended 90th General Assembly.
Did these lawmakers change their tune because the GOP was to take over the Governor's Mansion, the state House and the state Senate?
Or did they change their tune because to throw 200,000 poor Arkansans off an insurance program might lead to an anti-GOP revolt at the ballot box?
The biggest question is not of politics, but of money, the governor said.
Just where is the money going to come from to continue to provide this health-care coverage that has saved small rural hospitals and for the first time allowed 200,000 to have some form of health-care coverage?
The governor went on to say such an option of not using the enhanced Medicaid money: "... might be a solution for Arkansas, and we don't know exactly what's going to happen totally at the federal level down the road."
Maybe he is hoping the feds will pay more of Arkansas' Asacare, a revamped, renamed and less give-a-way program toward free health care.
Hutchinson's order directed the council, "to explore and offer recommendations to modernize the Arkansas Medicaid programs, particularly in light of increasing general revenue expenditures and federal mandates and regulations."
The executive order also directs the council to provide recommendations to Hutchinson and "serve as a forum for stakeholder issues, concerns and ideas to be heard and to be communicated to the Legislative Task Force on Healthcare Reform."
Swallowing hard might not be telling the feds to take back their money. But it might be telling all those against the Private Option, the state must keep it.
Change it.
And you who don't like it need to swallow hard and accept it.
Like I said, with every fine hide comes a less-than-desirable tail.
MAYLON RICE, AN AWARD-WINNING COLUMNIST, HAS WRITTEN BOTH NEWS AND COLUMNS FOR SEVERAL NWA PUBLICATIONS AND HAS BEEN WRITING FOR THE ENTERPRISE-LEADER FOR SEVERAL YEARS.
General News on 05/13/2015