Huntsville, AL-The Alabama Legislature convenes tomorrow and there are several hot button items on the docket. Healthcare reform and the state budget are both at the top of Representative Mike Ball’s, R-Madison, list. He pre-filed a bill that would keep control of healthcare with the state.
“This would say that any and all decisions regarding healthcare would be made on the state level rather than the one size fits all federal healthcare plan that they passed a few years ago,” he explained.
Ball says the states budget must be balanced and healthcare is a big drain on the coffers.
“It just allows states flexibility and in this day and age, what we are doing, one of the things that is busting the general fund budget is the Medicaid cost.”
Also pre-filed is a bill making people who fail drug test ineligible for public healthcare. “If you are going to take illegal substances why should the tax payers be paying for your healthcare via Medicaid, we shouldn’t,” says State Senator Arthur Orr, R-Decatur.
Representative John Robinson. says he hopes to see some changes made to the controversial illegal immigration bill. He says he does not know what can be done right now, since the Democrats are a minority, but he has hope something can be done.
“It is a very vindictive bill and we as Democrats tried to tell them that during the whole issue. It is my hope that something can be done.”
All men agree that a big problem will be balancing the budget. Orr says it will not be an easy task with 400 million dollars less than this time last year.
“This is a significant amount, close to 25 percent. So we are going to looking at cuts all across state government and we have got some very tough decisions to make”
