By Howard Fischer | Capitol Media Services via Arizona Daily Star
Current and former Republican lawmakers are making a last-ditch effort to eliminate a program that provides health care to about 400,000 Arizonans.
Related: Health care for more than 22,000 Arizona children in jeopardy
In new legal filings Monday with the Arizona Supreme Court, Goldwater Institute attorney Christina Sandefur said she is not arguing that the program expanding health care is illegal. Instead, she contends on behalf of GOP legislators she represents that the levy on hospitals, which effectively pays the state’s share of the cost, was illegally enacted because it was approved only by a simple majority of the House and Senate.
If the justices agree, the state could no longer collect the approximately $264 million being paid annually by the hospitals. Without that money, there aren’t enough funds for the program that both expanded coverage in the state’s Medicaid program and restored coverage for those dropped from it in a budget-savings move.
