Arkansas private option

Cecile Bledsoe is to be congratulated for voting for principles instead of selfishly caving in because not voting for Arkansas Works might make the state look harder on budget items. read more >

As bad as the financial picture at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences is now, it could be a lot worse if the state’s hybrid Medicaid expansion plan isn’t continued by the state Legislature. read more >

As Arkansans and especially our legislators begin yet again to consider the ways we provide health insurance to our poorest and most vulnerable neighbors, it was encouraging to see our state’s previous efforts recognized by the Los Angeles Times. read more >

Brad Parsons is the CEO of NEA Baptist Health System, a medical group with 140 providers and a 216-bed acute-care hospital. read more >

The Stephen Group has reinforced that Arkansas was smart to accept the federal Medicaid expansion money that all other Southern states but Kentucky refused. read more >

As a rule, we’re hesitant to ascribe motives to actions unless the actors have explained them. Therefore, we won’t join the commentators who have tagged as mere “meanness” the state’s decision to give beneficiaries of “private option” health insurance only 10 days to respond to questions about their continued eligibility. read more >

The effect of the “private option” — Arkansas’ use of federal Medicaid expansion funding to buy private health insurance for the working poor — is written all over this year’s list of the state’s largest health insurance companies. read more >

Gov. Asa Hutchinson delivered a fine speech Thursday when he finally shared his plans for the future of Arkansas’ unique — and successful — private option health insurance program. read more >

But unless we replace the ACA with a brilliant idea that its opponents have thus far kept shrouded in secrecy, getting rid of Obamacare will mean one thing: Millions of Americans — including 200,000 of our neighbors here in Arkansas — will go back to being uninsured, a lifestyle that I wouldn’t tolerate for myself and my family for a single day. read more >

While much has been claimed in the course of the recent election about Arkansans losing insurance coverage because of Obamacare, the dramatic decline in the total number of uninsured suggests that the number who lost insurance has been overwhelmed by the number who gained it. That’s simple math. read more >

John Selig joined the Department of Human Services in 1988 as a special assistant to the director. He left the agency for two years in 1994 to work at the Department of Health before returning to DHS as the director of Behavioral Health Services. He was named director by Gov. Mike Huckabee in 2005. read more >

Arkansas, through sheer political will that strikes me as more miraculous every day, bucked the trend of conservative states turning away federal dollars to fund health insurance for the working poor. read more >

State Sen. Jane English has no use for the private option, the Medicaid expansion providing health insurance to the poor. But the Republican lawmaker from North Little Rock saw an opportunity and took it, and what began as an old-fashioned political horse trade — you get my vote, I get something for my constituents — appears likely to evolve into a governor-backed legislative package that next year will seek to transform workforce training in Arkansas. read more >

It shouldn’t be a profile in courage for legislators to vote to accept federal government money to provide health insurance to working adults who simply don’t earn enough money to afford health insurance. After all, Arkansas legislators seem to have no compunction about accepting federal highway dollars and federal education dollars and national park and forest dollars. read more >