Private-option-to-end bill advances

http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2015/mar/24/bill-advances-to-notify-when-private-op/

Arkansans who enroll or renew their enrollment in the state's private-option program would be notified by the state Department of Human Services that the program and its health insurance coverage will end on Dec. 31, 2016, under legislation that cleared the Arkansas Senate on Monday.

The program extends insurance coverage to adults who have incomes of up to 138 percent of the poverty level -- $16,105 for an individual, for instance, or $32,913 for a family of four. More than 190,000 Arkansans have enrolled in private health insurance through the private option, according to the state Department of Human Services.

The state will have to start paying 5 percent of the cost of the program in 2017, and its share will eventually increase to 10 percent in 2020, when Gov. Asa Hutchinson says the state's cost would be more than $200 million.

While a legislative task force has been appointed to study the state's entire Medicaid program, including the private option, and recommend changes by the end of this year, "the Legislature can change the laws [and] they could come back with a new recommendation and we might look at that and change it as well," Collins-Smith said after the Senate's vote on the bill.

"I want [the private option] to end because the people of Arkansas have overwhelmingly made statements, even by elections, voting differently than they have in the past to make sure this private option ends," Collins-Smith said.