LITTLE ROCK — Expand Arkansas’ Medicaid program to serve an additional 250,000 poor Arkansans, the state Board of Health urged Thursday.
The state Medicaid program currently covers 779,282 people each year and costs $4.8 billion in state and federal funds in 2012.
The U.S. government pays the entire cost of expansion for the first three years under the federal health-care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The state share of the cost would gradually rise to 10 percent by 2020.
It is up to Arkansas’ government to decide whether to expand its rolls.
Board President-elect Dr. Clark Fincher said the expansion would have “incredible” benefits for the overall health of the state population.
“It’s a very important and crucial issue ... we hope that the politicians and the Legislature will perhaps consider our opinion when they are deciding how to vote,” Fincher said.
Fincher proposed the endorsement through a resolution at the board’s quarterly meeting Thursday in Little Rock.
“We’re trying to make it a nonpolitical issue, strictly a matter of the health of all Arkansans,” he said by phone after the meeting. “It would be a great health decision any way you look at it. This is crucial to a quarter of a million people and their health.”
The 24-member board comprises doctors, other medical professionals and consumers, as well as the surgeon general and Health Department Director Paul Halverson.
The board is responsible for the health and safety of the public; the Health Department implements regulations created by the board.
Thursday’s resolution has no binding effect.
Katheryn Hargis, the Health Department’s governmental affairs policy director, said that of the 18 members present, Dr. Marvin Leibovich was the only reported vote against the resolution. Member Alan Fortenberry specified that he abstained, she said.
Leibovich could not be reached at his home or office late Thursday.
Members not present were state Surgeon General Joe Thompson, Mary Beth Ringgold, Alexander Rejistre, Dr. Eddie Bryant, Larry Fritchman and Jim Lambert, Hargis said.
In a June decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled states could not be punished financially for refusing to expand their Medicaid programs to take in poor people who hadn’t previously quali- fied, essentially leaving the choice of whether to expand the program up to the individual states.
Gov. Mike Beebe has said he is leaning toward approving the expansion but wants more information from the federal government on whether Arkansas could reduce eligibility requirements in the future if the state couldn’t afford its share.
Three-quarters of the members of the Senate and House would have to approve accepting federal money for the expansion for it to move forward.
The state Department of Human Services has estimated that state government would net $372 million in savings between 2014 and 2021 if it expands the program and accepts additional federal funds.
This would occur, in part, because the state would be able to tax health-care providers for the hundreds of millions of dollars in extra income they would potentially receive as a result of the expansion.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 07/27/2012