Arkansas’ model Medicaid experiment in jeopardy

Associated Press

December 17, 2014

By Andrew DeMillo,

Arkansas became the first southern state to expand its Medicaid program in a way that many Republicans found acceptable. The state bought private insurance for low-income people instead of adding them to the rolls of the Medicaid system, which GOP lawmakers considered bloated and inefficient.

Now Arkansas could be on the brink of another distinction: becoming the first to abandon its Medicaid expansion after giving coverage to thousands of people.

A wave of newly elected Republican lawmakers who ran on vows to fight so-called “Obamacare” – including the state’s “private option” Medicaid expansion – has raised doubts about the future of a leading model for conservative states to gradually adapt to the federal health care law. Arkansas’ incoming Republican governor, Asa Hutchinson, is remaining mum on the plan’s fate.

[…] The fight in Arkansas mirrors the larger fight within the GOP over whether to focus on changing the health law or just repealing it.

“Arkansas is going to be ground zero for which side of the argument wins,” said Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families.

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