|
|
| |
| Fri, Dec. 5, 2008 |  |
 |
|
||
| |
Hutchinson: Exempt bed tax, repeal food tax now Saturday, Sep 2, 2006 By Doug Thompson Arkansas News Bureau FAYETTEVILLE - Governor's candidate Asa Hutchinson said he would support a waiver to exempt private-pay, long-term care facilities from the so-called bed tax. Hutchinson spoke to more than 100 residents of Butterfield Trail Village, a retirement community in Fayetteville, where residents are charged the fee but derive no benefit from it. The fee costs a resident an average of $500 a year, facility director Bill Wickizer said. Formally titled "the quality assurance fee," the charge was levied in Act 635 of 2001. The formula for the fee results in different charges to each nursing home. The fee is used to obtain federal funds for Medicaid. Since each dollar of state taxpayer money yields a federal match of $3 of taxpayer funds, nursing homes see a net benefit through the Medicaid program. Butterfield Trail is primarily a retirement community with apartments, but is subject to the fee because it has a nursing home facility on the grounds. Butterfield Trail does not participate in the Medicaid program, which allows its nursing home's exclusive use by community residents. Therefore, the residents pay the fee while receiving no benefit, Wickizer said. Considering the state has a budget surplus of about $400 million, it would be able to afford an exemption to facilities like Butterfield Trail, Hutchinson said. "It's an unfair assessment and there should be an exemption for facilities such as this," he said. Hutchinson's Democratic opponent, Attorney General Mike Beebe, said Friday he talked with Wickizer on Wednesday and "is open to helping ease the financial burden of long-term care for our seniors" but stopped short of saying whether he would support an exemption. He favored a cigarette tax to pay for improving nursing home care when he was a senator in 2001, but voted for the bed tax in a compromise proposal. Hutchinson also said he is in favor of immediately repealing the state sales tax on groceries, that having a phase-out would be a "loophole you could drive a truck through." An immediate exemption would cost $140 million to $190 million a year, depending on how groceries are defined, he said. |
