The rush to pass a Medicaid reform bill in the S.C. House last week was "not good political debate," Gov. Mark Sanford says, and it "retarded" a real discussion of the issues.

In an interview Friday, Sanford said Republican leaders in the House seemed in a hurry to adopt the bill that would help fund Medicaid by refinancing the state's tobacco settlement bonds.

Sanford opposes the refinancing. Instead, Sanford, a Republican, wants to fund Medicaid by increasing the tax on cigarettes. His plan also lowers the income tax over a period of several years.

The dispute is the first major row between the governor and lawmakers.

The House plan would create $43 million in one-time money to help fund Medicaid. Raising the cigarette tax would raise up to $100 million a year.

Maneuvers by House leadership, including Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville, were the "inner workings of the political process, the pulling of legislative levers," Sanford said. Those levers "can slow or thwart, for a little while, public will, but at the end of the day, it can't stop it."

Republicans, the majority party in the House and Senate, used House rules to get the bill on the agenda more quickly than normal.

Wilkins said moving quickly made sense. The House had just passed the state budget bill the week before, and that bill has a hole that is filled by the Medicaid restructuring plan.

"I respectfully disagree with my friend the governor," Wilkins said. "We've got a bill that deals with the tobacco settlement tracking with the budget. It was understood from the beginning that we were going to get the two out as soon as possible."

Wilkins and other House leaders also flatly oppose tax increases.

"I feel strongly that we should not increase taxes and I voiced my opinion to other members," Wilkins said. "And they know how I feel."

Sanford, however, said he spoke with a number of lawmakers who told him "this was the most exercised they've seen the leadership, the speaker, in the last nine years."

Wilkins took the floor to speak in favor of the bill. While that's not unusual, the speaker generally only does that for the most important legislation.

"Our guys, instead of being criticized for working hard to get the job done, should be applauded," said Wilkins, adding that Senate leaders asked that the House send the tobacco bill quickly after the budget.

Besides, Wilkins said, he was simply helping the governor.

The other reason to move fast, he said, "quite frankly was in deference to the governor, who had injected himself into this debate so strongly."

Sanford left Saturday for two weeks of Air Force Reserve training in Alabama. Wilkins said he wanted to deal with the tobacco bill while the governor was in Columbia.

Regardless, Sanford said he is not concerned. He has the support of several powerful Republican senators for the cigarette tax increase. If the Senate goes along with his plan instead of the House's, a conference committee made up of representatives from both chambers will work out the differences between the two plans.

"Conference is the place to be," Sanford said.

"We've still got plenty of time between now and when the Senate takes this up," Sanford said, "and hopefully come back to conference, and it's that time period we're after."

In the meantime, Sanford plans to continue to take his case to the public. In the past week, he visited hospitals in Charleston and Columbia, where Medicaid spending shortfalls would threaten medical care for the state's poor, elderly and disabled.

What the House wanted, Sanford said, was to avoid public pressure that can build up on an issue over time.

But Wilkins also said he opposes Sanford's plan not just because it raises taxes, but because the corresponding decrease in income taxes is not guaranteed.

"It's a huge tax increase with a promise of a possible tax decrease in the future," Wilkins said.

Both men do agree on one thing: The best idea should win. Just which idea is best, however, is still up for debate.

"I have always believed in a meritocracy," Sanford said. "At the end of the day, the best idea wins. I think (our) idea has a lot of merit."

Wilkins said he agrees with the idea of a meritocracy, but added, "We think we have the best idea."