An Arkansas health insurance board has been given an additional month to choose a "benchmark" plan that will be used to set requirements for plans sold to individual consumers and small businesses in the state starting in 2017, the chairman of a board committee said Wednesday.
During a meeting of the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace board's plan management committee, held via conference call, committee Chairman Annabelle Imber Tuck said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has given the board a one-month extension, until July 1, to choose a benchmark plan.
As a result, Tuck said the committee will discuss the issue again Tuesday at 3 p.m. in the fifth-floor conference room of the Prospect Building at 1501 N. University Ave. in Little Rock.
The committee had been expected to vote during the conference call, but Tuck said she would prefer the decision be made during an "in-person" meeting.
The final choice will be made by the marketplace board, which is working to establish state-run insurance exchanges that will replace the federal exchanges.
The benchmark plan is used as a standard to ensure health plans offer the essential health care benefits spelled out in the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
The current benchmark, selected in 2012 by then-Insurance Commissioner Jay Bradford, is Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield's Health Advantage Point of Service Plan for small businesses.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has called on states to choose a new benchmark plan for 2017.
Metro on 05/14/2015