The Arizona Senate demonstrated that they are deserving of every negative rating or award as the worst legislative body in the state’s history. They have strived to reach new lows, and succeeded.
The Senate went through the tedious process of debating and voting on the budget proposed by the republicans with Governor Brewer’s Medicaid expansion tribute to President Obama’s bankruptcy bill attached.
Senate President Andy Biggs attached several amendments to the bill that had they survived would have made it unattractive to democrats. However the amendments were one-by-one voted down by votes ranging from 19 to 11, the close ones were 16 to 14.
The most disgusting displays of callousness to taxpayers were demonstrated in the rejection of Dr. Kelli Ward (R-D5). Ward is the only member of the Senate who is a practicing physician and she is intimately familiar with the problems with AHCCCS as it exists.
Noting that the problems such as emergency room abuse, prescription fraud, emergency vehicle abuse and prescription overdoses would be exacerbated if the Governor’s Medicaid Expansion is implemented as it is currently designed, Ward offered amendments designed to protect patients and taxpayers:
• Controls to curb the use of emergency rooms. As a regular physician, she told the story of a woman who had two small children under the age of four. Each child has visited the ER an average of 50 times in their short lives. She said that if people were told that the ER wouldn’t be paid for if it isn’t a true emergency, they would stop the abuse. As it stands now these children will never know that the emergency room isn’t where they go for healthcare.
• Stop the unnecessary use of emergency vehicles (ambulance). Ward told of one woman who used an ambulance for transportation the hospital ER 30 times in recent years to get her prescription of Oxycodone filled.
• Legislators refused controls on the issuance and purchase of prescriptions for controlled substances. There is no prohibition on a person paying cash for the medication that is over and above amount paid for by AHCCCS. In Mohave County they distribute enough Oxycodone monthly to keep the entire County medicated for four weeks.
There were four more amendments Ward presented including some that placed responsibility on healthcare providers and pharmacists. They were common sense requirements, but the misguided senators lowered the bar once again and to curry favor with the Governor.
Go figure.