Arkansas Business

Even if the mandate or the whole law had been ruled unconstitutional, "so many of our people are so far down that road that they would have continued anyway, but now they can do it as part of the law," he said.

Lt. Gov. Mark Darr, serving as acting governor while Gov. Mike Beebe is in France on an economic development junket, supported the provision of the ruling that strikes down the Medicaid expansion mandate.

"This ruling tells us the federal government cannot punish states if they choose not to participate in this Medicaid expansion program," he said in a statement released Thursday afternoon. "This decision underscores the fact that when Arkansas' political establishment said we had to grow government, they were wrong. What conservative legislators have been saying was right: we unnecessarily wasted millions of dollars starting health care exchanges in Arkansas when we didn't have to."

(Jennifer Ellis contributred to this report.)