Republican Utah House Reps Voted Opposite Their Republican House Reps on a Rewrite of a Law Voters Passed. Here’s Why. Rhett Wilkinson Follow Feb 19, 2019 · 4 min read

Republicans in the Utah House of Representatives were not in agreement over Senate Bill 96, legislation that rewrote a law brought about by Utahns voting for it in November. Reps. Steve Eliason, Eric Hutchings and Craig Hall joined Democrats in their vote, suggesting the problems with SB96. Hutchings and Eliason spoke with me about their vote, while Hall did not return a request for comment. Though the Utah state legislature is concurrently running, SB96 is already law, replacing the Proposition 3 law that was at the ballot box.

Steve Eliason

Eliason is a financial manager at University of Utah Hospital and Clinics, according to the Utah legislature. said he wanted more detail on a per-capita tradeoff for a population falling within 100 percent of the federal poverty line versus those falling under 138 percent. (In SB96, the threshold will go from 100 to 138 percent if Utah does not receive waivers from the federal government by January of next year.)

Utah GOP Rep. Steve Eliason, who said he works in health care, said he wanted more detail on a per-capita tradeoff regarding Utah’s Medicaid-expansion bill for a population falling within 100 percent of the federal poverty line versus those falling under 138 percent. (Rick Bowmer/Associated Press)

Eliason was concerned about the tradeoff regarding the 1115 “demonstration” waiver in SB96.

“I’m not saying it’s good or bad,” Eliason said. “It would have been nice to know on the front end.”

Eliason said that at the “end of the day,” the Prop. 3 law will be the “backup” to SB96, Eliason’s reasoning being because of the fallback if a waiver is not granted.

Eliason also noted that Utah would “have to be the first in the nation to receive per-capita caps.”

Eliason described the issue as something that “may be a unique concern I have.”

The second of Eliason’s two reasons was because the law voters passed, Proposition 3, “passed by a wide margin in (his) district.”

Eric Hutchings

Hutchings’s mother died at just age 63 because of lack of access to healthcare insurance like that found in expanded Medicaid. She needed it because she had bone marrow cancer; she had to lie on her back for a year-and-a-half, having 12 broken bones because the disease was eating the calcium out of her bones, Hutchings said.

“Literally, she couldn’t even sit up,” Hutchings said.

Hutchings’ mother loved lighthouses. She and her husband were saving to visit every lighthouse in the United States, starting with Washington State. The next summer after Hutchings’ mother got sick would have been when that trip took place.

“Then, they lost everything,” Hutchings said.

Hutchings’ father quit his job in order to help Hutchings’ mother, who died 12 years ago.

Hutchings’ parents had “exhausted every single other avenue” to find health insurance, he said, describing Medicaid as the “last guardrail from going over the cliff.” Hutchings’ father didn’t have health insurance. He “literally watch(ed) my mom die,” Hutchings said.

Of Medicaid, Hutchings said “It’s not just free health care … There was no other option but just straight catastrophe … that has really changed my impression of what availability means for a lot of people.”

It is a misnomer for people to think that people who are on Medicaid “are unemployed, even voluntarily unemployed,” Hutchings said.

Hutchings’ parents had to do a Medicaid spend down, and it “devastated them,” Hutchings said, describing it as a “one-two punch.”

Hutchings said while talking with me that “all those sorts of things (regarding his mom) just make us more human.”

If people don’t want medically assisted suicides, then Medicaid should be in place to keep people from dwindling in their health to death.

Hutchings has learned that “lesson” the “hard way,” he said.

“But man, I’ve definitely learned it,” he said, noting that his mom was just short of qualifying for Medicare. “That truly flavored my conversations.”

Hutchings has always favored closing the healthcare gap in Utah, as the issue has been part of the Utah policy scene for several consecutive years now. He wanted “targeted expansion” and sought it for “criminal justice reform” and the issue of homelessness at Rio Grande Street in Salt Lake City.

“I was a big proponent of the idea that it could really add in,” he said. “When the expansion came up, first of all, I was in favor of closing that gap all day long.”

Hutchings complimented GOP Rep. Ray Ward for Ward’s efforts to close the gap and wanted to see Ward’s HB210 get picked up by the legislature. HB210 would have only made technical changes to the Prop. 3 law voters passed.

“If we make someone a commitment, (we) need to make dang sure we can afford it,” Hutchings later said. “In the United States, about 50 percent of all bankruptcies are medical-related.”

Hutchings has worked in personal finance, he noted before pointing out the “50 percent” stat.

Folks get sick, then lose their jobs and with it, their insurance.

“The next thing you know, you’re bankrupt; you’ve lost everything,” Hutchings explained.

Hutchings likes the idea that individuals do not fall off “cliffs,” he said.

“I like the idea of a transition” “from Medicaid to going into the market,” Hutchings said.

Hutchings remembers visiting his mother and finding her not well. He remembered getting a phone call from his sister the legislature’s annual night at the aquarium. Not even two hours later, his mom was dead.

Hutchings said he is “going down in a blaze of glory”; that he is “building his own experimental aircraft.”

Hutchings also wanted expansion because “there was a very clear message (in Hutchings’ district) that we need to do expansion,” he said. “(That’s) what I felt like we needed to stick with.”

In Hutchings’ district, the Prop. 3 law “felt like a pretty good product” and that it was “going to be super-hard” to communicate SB96, he said, then remarking that Ward’s bill “would have been better; a better message.”

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