The former director of Utah’s health-insurance exchange accepted an offer Monday to become the first director of the entity that is exploring creating a state-run health insurance exchange in Arkansas.
Cheryl Smith, a consultant with Deloitte Consulting, will start work May 19 for the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace, a nonprofit organization creating by the Legislature last year.
Her salary was set at $165,000.
Smith is the first employee of the marketplace to be hired since its board of directors was appointed last fall. She will be in charge of hiring other staff members, board member Fred Bean said.
He said Smith is well-prepared for the job.
“It’s exciting to me what she brings to the table with her experience and background,” he said.
Smith didn’t return a phone message seeking comment Monday.
In a phone interview last week, Smith cited Arkansas’ approach to expanding Medicaid as a reason for her interest in the job. The state was the first in the country to win federal approval to use Medicaid funds to buy coverage for the newly eligible Medicaid recipients on the insurance exchange.
Set up in every state under the 2010 federal health-care overhaul law, exchanges allow people to shop for coverage and apply for subsidies to help them pay for it.
Arkansas is among more than 30 states with a federally run exchange. The remaining states opted to set up their own exchanges.
Act 1500 of 2013 directed the Health Insurance Marketplace Board to decide whether Arkansas should take over the operation of the state’s exchange as early as next year.
After interviewing four applicants, the board voted last week to offer Smith the job. Smith sent Chairman Sherrill Wise an email accepting the job Monday, Bean said.
From May 2008 to July 2010, Smith was director of policy and strategy for the Utah exchange, which facilitates coverage offered by small businesses. Along with the one in Massachusetts,the Utah exchange is one of two state health insurance exchanges that predates the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
According to her resume, Smith, 44, also worked as a visiting policy fellow for the conservative Heritage Foundation from May 2007 to January 2009.
Smith told the board that, before she starts work in Arkansas, she needs to finish some consulting projects and will take a vacation she had already scheduled, Bean said.
Money for her salary and those of other Health Insurance Marketplace Board employees will come from a $3.6 million grant from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
State Sen. David Sanders, R-Little Rock, chairman of a legislative committee monitoring the board, said he was pleased with the board’s selection.
“This is somebody who is very serious about innovative change in health care, and has been for some time,” Sanders said. “She fits the bill.”
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 04/01/2014