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Arkansas

  • Arkansas’s Laura Kellams Receives Georgetown CCF’s 2017 Bulldog Award

    Elisabeth Wright Burak

    In 2014, we started the “Bulldog of the Year” award, to honor a state advocate that embodies bulldog-like tenacity and stubbornness in the quest to improve health care for children. (Georgetown’s mascot, Jack, is a bulldog.) I was so excited that one of my favorite people on the planet, Laura Kellams, was awarded this year’s…

  • Arkansas and Nevada Latest to Eliminate 5-Year Waiting Period for Lawfully Residing Children

    Olivia Pham

    The Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 gave states the option to improve Medicaid access by waiving the 5-year waiting period for lawfully residing immigrant children. With Arkansas and Nevada coming on board, this option has now been adopted by 33 states. Earlier this year, the Arkansas legislature passed a resolution to waive…

  • Arkansas Health Hub Panel Urges Slight ‘Navigator’ Funding Rise

    News Article

    Arkansas Democrat By Andy Davis A committee of the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace recommended Wednesday that the agency slightly increase its spending on outreach workers to help people sign up for coverage. … Committee member Marquita Little, health care policy director for Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, said she is concerned that the state’s…

  • Top 10 Rural Counties With Largest Share of Kids and Adults Relying on Medicaid to Meet Health Needs

    Joan Alker

    Using data from our Rural Health Policy Project, we just took a look at the counties across the country that have the highest percent of children and adults relying on Medicaid for their health care. As readers of SayAhhh! know, our study found that children living in small towns and rural areas are significantly more…

  • INTERACTIVE MAPS: Children Covered by Medicaid and CHIP by county, state or congressional district.

    CCFadmin

    These maps show how many children are covered by Medicaid in each county and congressional district. Visit these links to view the maps, and to download handouts on your state’s coverage data: Percent of Children Covered by Medicaid/CHIP (congressional district) Percent of Children Covered by Medicaid/CHIP (county) Visit CCF’s State Resource Center for state-level data on health…

  • ARKids First turns 20!

    Guest

    Originally posted by Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. Twenty years ago today, on March 10, 1997, then-Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee signed ARKids First into law. ARKids was Arkansas’s state-funded health insurance program, and bringing it to life was a monumental moment for kids and families in our state. ARKids filled in the gap for…

  • ACA Repeal & Medicaid Cuts Would Make it Tougher for Arkansas to Meet Education Goals

    CCFadmin

    Last month, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson vowed to make third-grade reading a top priority, building on the impressive work the state has already done to bring more children into early education programs. Now the federal push to scrap the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and change the way we provide health care to families threatens to…

  • Arkansas Will be Particularly Hard Hit by Repeal of ACA

    Joan Alker

    As regular readers of Say Ahhh! know, Arkansas has a unique approach to Medicaid expansion, known as “Arkansas Works” or the “private option,” which relies on the federal marketplace to provide coverage to Medicaid expansion enrollees instead of using Medicaid plans and providers to deliver coverage. As a result, the current plan by Congressional leaders…

  • Medicaid Expansion is Having Positive Ripple Effects

    Adam Searing

    (Editor’s Note: You can hear the recording of our press call releasing the report here.) By Adam Searing and Jack Hoadley The 19 states that continue to decline federal funding to offer Medicaid coverage to more uninsured residents are missing out on more than just improvements to their uninsured and uncompensated care rates. In fact,…

  • Beyond the Reduction in Uncompensated Care: Medicaid Expansion Is Having a Positive Impact on Safety Net Hospitals and Clinics

    Adam Searing

    More than two years after the onset of expanded Medicaid coverage, significant differences are emerging between states that opted to expand Medicaid and those that did not. This report contains the findings of telephone interviews with eleven leaders of hospital systems and federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) in seven states. Three of the states where we conducted interviews…

  • Arkansas and Arizona Drive in Different Directions on Medicaid Transportation Benefit

    CCFadmin

    By Sean Miskell Most observers expect that remaining states that have not yet expanded Medicaid are likely to seek changes to the program via waivers as they move forward on expansion. A few states that have already expanded Medicaid are also seeking to make changes through waivers. But these changes are not always for the…

  • Arkansas Health Care Reform Task Force Considers Changes to Medicaid Private Option

    Guest

    By Marquita Little, Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families Consultants for the Arkansas Health Care Reform Task Force released a new report recommending the Private Option become a transitional or temporary program focused on “moving people upward” to opportunities. This is on the heels of an earlier report noting the Private Option will save the…

  • Arkansas’s Health Care Reform Forum: Medicaid Expansion and the Private Option

    CCFadmin

    How has the Affordable Care Act and health care reform directly affected consumers and access to health care? How does Medicaid expansion relate to the broader health reform effort? How has Arkansas’s Private Option affected the state’s health care system? What makes a premium assistance model appealing for health care Arkansas and other states? These…

  • Arkansas Approves Private Option Improving Security for Families, Hospitals & State Budget

    Guest

    By Marquita Little, Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families Arkansas’s unique approach to Medicaid expansion, known as the Private Option, has been a success during its short lifespan. However, some state policy makers want to see the program end. Within just a couple weeks of being sworn in as the new Governor, Asa Hutchinson spoke…

  • Arkansas Proposes Unwelcome Changes to the Private Option

    Joan Alker

    Last week, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Georgetown CCF and 15 other national and state groups submitted comments to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services outlining concerns with proposed changes to the state’s Section 1115 Medicaid waiver which authorizes the state’s Medicaid expansion – known as the “private option.” We expressed…

  • Open Enrollment 2: Experts Answer Tough Questions and Offer Advice to Help Navigators and Consumer Assisters

    JoAnn Volk

    This week, Georgetown University experts from the Center on Health Insurance Reforms and  the Center for Children and Families released a report from their ongoing project to support Navigators and consumer assisters. The project, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, provides Navigators and other in-person assisters in six states – Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan,…

  • Advocating for Children’s Coverage Under the Medicaid Expansion Option

    Guest

    By Dr. Liane Wong, Health Leader and Program Officer, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation For those up-to-date Say Ahhh! readers, Adam Searing recently wrote about the more compelling reasons – namely $423.6 billion federal dollars plus billions of uncompensated care funds to hospitals – why it’s getting much harder for Governors to turn down Medicaid…

  • Crossing Into New Territory with 25,000 Newly Covered Kids

    Guest

    By Anna Strong, Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families At Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, we’ve been working for many years to ensure that all children have health coverage here in our state. Our latest report, Crossing into New Territory: Kids’ Health Coverage in 2014, outlines the progress Arkansas has made in covering kids since…

  • Last Call for State-Based Health Insurance Marketplaces

    Sonya Schwartz

    Arkansas Governor Beebe recently noted that some Republican Governors are warming to the idea of running their own health insurance marketplace. I hope that they know that their time is running out! Setting up a state-based health insurance marketplace is no small task, and unlike the Medicaid expansion decision, states that want to do it…

  • Where Does EPSDT Stand in Post-ACA Medicaid Expansion 1115 Waivers?

    Sonya Schwartz

    In the last few months, CMS has approved Medicaid expansion 1115 waiver demonstrations in Arkansas, Iowa and Michigan. Pennsylvania has a draft 1115 waiver proposal to expand Medicaid out as well. One important question that has emerged is: How will states continue to provide EPSDT and other benefits to 19 and 20 year olds who…