Four members of the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace board said Wednesday that they favor holding the board's committee meetings in a larger room to provide better access to members of the public who want to attend.
On Tuesday, an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter objected when he and other visitors were excluded from a meeting of an evaluation committee composed of board and staff members. The committee met in a small conference room in Little Rock's Prospect Building to discuss bids for the contract to supply the technology for a state-based exchange for small businesses.
Cheryl Smith, the marketplace's director, said there wasn't enough room for the public inside the small conference room.
The reporter and two other visitors were allowed to listen to the meeting from a larger, nearby conference room via a speakerphone connection. Several of the marketplace board's staff members also listened from the larger conference room.
On Wednesday morning, a reporter was allowed to observe the board's plan management committee meeting from inside the small conference room.
But Smith warned the reporter, "If we started getting packed, I'm going to need you to go back out there" to listen to the meeting via speakerphone.
At Wednesday's meeting, the committee recommended that plans offered on a state-run health insurance exchange for small businesses shouldn't immediately have to meet any requirements beyond those now imposed by the state's federally operated small-business exchange.
Contacted after Wednesday's meeting, the board's vice chairman, Steve Faris of Malvern, said he will propose that committee meetings be moved to a larger room.
"Obviously, it's hard to even accommodate all the board members in that small room," Faris said. "I think it's important that we accommodate anyone who wants to come and watch the meetings."
Created by the state Legislature in 2013, the Health Insurance Marketplace is working to build insurance exchanges that would replace the ones set up for the state by the federal government. Supporters of Arkansas-based exchanges say they could be tailored to better fit the state's needs.
Enrollment in Arkansas' planned small-business exchange is scheduled to start in October for coverage that would start in 2016.
For individual consumers, enrollment would begin in 2016 for coverage that would start in 2017.
Typically, full board meetings are held in a large conference room on the fifth floor of the Prospect Building on North University Avenue, while committee meetings are held in the small room within the board's offices on the ninth floor.
A reporter had been allowed inside the small conference room for previous meetings.
Those inside the room during Tuesday's meeting included five board members, Smith and two other staff members, and a consultant from the Boston-based Public Consulting Group.
The committee and board have kept secret the names of the companies that submitted bids, along with details of the bids. Committee members referred to the companies using Southeastern Conference athletic mascots as code names during the meeting.
Board member Fred Bean of Little Rock, who isn't on the evaluation committee and wasn't at the meeting Tuesday, said the marketplace should have secured a larger room.
"I think it's a mistake that was made," Bean said. "It's very unfortunate that it was made."
He noted that the fifth-floor conference room can be rented for $25 per meeting.
Marketplace spokesman Heather Haywood didn't respond Tuesday or Wednesday when asked whether the marketplace board had attempted to reserve the fifth-floor room for Tuesday's meeting.
Bean said he plans to try to reserve the fifth-floor room for an outreach and marketing committee meeting scheduled for next month.
He also questioned the need to keep secret the names of the bidders for the technology contract.
"I've never done anything like this where you play the games with the football names or whatever it was that they did," Bean said. "That just doesn't sound very professional."
The marketplace has denied requests from the Democrat-Gazette for records identifying the bidders, citing an exemption to the state Freedom of Information Act for records that "if disclosed would give advantage to competitors or bidders."
Smith has said that revealing the names might cause one or more companies to withdraw their bids or discourage them from competing for other marketplace contracts.
Board members Mike Castleberry and Chris Parker, both of Little Rock, said they also would support using a larger room for committee meetings.
"I'm more than willing to try to accommodate as many people that want to come," Castleberry said.
Parker said, "I think the preferable situation is that the public be in the room where the meeting is held.
"That doesn't seem to me to be that difficult to accommodate with some forethought."
The state's Freedom of Information Act requires public boards to hold meetings in public except under certain circumstances, such as executive sessions to discuss certain personnel matters.
Robert Steinbuch, a law professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock who is considered an expert on the public meeting law, said Tuesday that "the logic and language" of the law indicates that the public has a right to be in the same room where members of the board are gathered.
Later Wednesday, Haywood said in an email that the meeting on Tuesday drew "an unprecedented number of in-person attendees."
"In light of recent events, moving forward, AHIM staff will make every effort to more accurately assess the number of AHIM board members, AHIM staff, public participants and members of the press attending AHIM committee and board meetings," Haywood said in the email. "Additionally, AHIM will seek venues to accommodate meetings to provide seating for all."
Under the plan management committee's recommendation on Wednesday, the state-run small-business exchange would require plans to meet the same requirements now imposed by the federally run exchange.
Committee Chairman Annabelle Imber Tuck noted that the marketplace board wants to encourage more insurance companies to participate and that the companies will face a tight deadline this year for submitting rates and other details of their plans to the state Insurance Department.
The marketplace board could make more changes in future years, she said.
Beginning in 2017, the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act allows states to apply for waivers from some of the health care law's requirements.
"With the fact that we've got the huge lifts on getting the state shop started, I really would rather not add change in the mix that will make the lift even heavier," she said.
The plan management committee's recommendation will go to the full board, which is next scheduled to meet Jan. 23. The board's recommendation will go to Insurance Commissioner Allen Kerr, who will notify insurance companies in a bulletin next month about requirements for plans offered next year on the individual and small-business exchanges.
Metro on 01/15/2015