Arkansas Works enrollees who don’t catch up on their unpaid health insurance premiums this year will have the money taken out of their state income tax refund, if they are owed one, in 2019, state officials said Monday.
The premiums of $13 a month are charged to participants in the state program with incomes between 100 percent and 138 percent of the poverty level.
For an individual, that income range is $12,060 to $16,643 a year.
More than 62,000 Arkansas Works enrollees were required to pay premiums as of early this year, but only about 20 percent are current on their premiums, Arkansas Department of Human Services spokesman Amy Webb said. The others owe premiums totaling about $8 million, she said.
Enrollees with unpaid premiums debt after Dec. 31 will have the money subtracted from any money they would otherwise be refunded from their 2018 taxes, she said.
Read Tuesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.