Oil spill threatens Lake Conway
A crude-oil pipeline ruptured near Lake Conway on Friday, prompting emergency workers to evacuate a residential neighborhood and rush to prevent the oil from e…
A crude-oil pipeline ruptured near Lake Conway on Friday, prompting emergency workers to evacuate a residential neighborhood and rush to prevent the oil from e…
Gov. Mike Beebe earlier this month questioned whether the state’s Medicaid program needed a requested $90 million, according to an e-mail from a state finance …
Come summer, at least 535 trained guides will start fanning out across Arkansas, knocking on doors, setting up folding chairs in community centers and handing …
Expanding Medicaid through private insurance won’t be a budget buster for Arkansas or the federal government.
Some lawmakers and advocates remain concerned that rural, poor Arkansans will be left without coverage when the state’s health-insurance exchange begins operat…
Arkansas businesses could be saddled with up to $38 million in fines if state lawmakers don’t expand Medicaid, according to a national tax service’s report.
Federal spending cuts triggered by sequestration threaten Arkansas’ budding health-insurance exchange after all, according to an e-mail to state exchange plann…
A letter sent to the federal government Wednesday by the Arkansas Department of Human Services outlines in concrete and exhaustive detail the oral agreement re…
Politicians such as Democratic state Rep. Reginald Murdock and Republican state Sen. Jonathan Dismang represent Arkansas’ chance to avoid Washington politics, …
Arkansas’ deal to expand Medicaid is legal, Gov. Mike Beebe said Thursday, and emails among state officials indicate that top federal officials agree.
E-mails between Arkansas policymakers and leading Republicans show an effort to develop pro-expansion “talking points” to help sell an unprecedented Medicaid e…
Lawmakers jousted Tuesday over a GOP choice for an outside consultant to evaluate Arkansas’ Medicaid program before a legislative panel approved the $220,000 c…
More dollars generated by fees levied on a huge new pool of customers on the state’s health-insurance exchange could help pay for Arkansas’ share of Medicaid e…
A leading Republican who has been unhappy with the state partnering with the federal government on its health insurance exchange said Monday that he is likely …
Lawmakers who want to see a price tag on the new private model for Medicaid expansion likely won’t see any dollar figures before a vote, Gov. Mike Beebe said T…
A day after Arkansas made national headlines for wrangling a unique option for Medicaid expansion from the federal government, lawmakers, advocates and provide…
Expanding Medicaid to all 250,000 eligible Arkansans can be done by funneling them through the state’s insurance exchange under a plan unveiled Tuesday by Gov.…
A powerful national lobbying group for older Americans cited Arkansas on Monday as one of two states where it is “ramping up” a national campaign to expand Med…
Gov. Mike Beebe emerged from a “productive” meeting with U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Friday, saying he felt good about Arkans…
Arkansas’ effort to overhaul the way it pays Medicaid providers received a boost Thursday as the federal government rewarded the state’s first-in-the-nation ef…
A state senator who has favored ceding control of the state’s insurance exchange to the federal government said Tuesday that his committee will hold hearings n…
Republicans’ continued skepticism about the benefits of Medicaid expansion and the existing $5 billion program has prompted one effort, possibly two, to engage…
Top officials from the Arkansas Department of Human Services and their state counterparts who handle federal disability claims agree that national policy needs…
Republican lawmakers voiced concern Wednesday that the state’s doctors will be squeezed financially by the far-reaching Medicaid cost-containment strategy bein…
Some large businesses in Arkansas that pay low wages are publicly supporting Medicaid expansion, citing worries that federal penalties or the high cost of prov…
Legislative auditors released a GOP-requested report on the state’s Medicaid program Friday that turned up a provider convicted of a sex crime who mainly serve…
Insurance companies, not the state, would decide how to deal with smokers in the new insurance marketplace mandated by the federal health-care law under a reco…
Republican lawmakers are talking about delaying a decision on Medicaid expansion until next year as they absorb an avalanche of new information regarding optio…
Legislation prohibiting coverage for abortions on the state’s health insurance exchange advanced Wednesday in a Senate panel.
The rapidly shrinking state Medicaid deficit can’t be explained by anything other than an “announcement effect” of the state’s far-reaching payment overhaul, w…
Insurance Department officials say an unusually structured budget bill makes it easier for insurance-exchange opponents to kill the state’s partnership model.
The federal government has agreed to consider a request by Gov. Mike Beebe to allow Arkansans whose income is just above the poverty level to choose private in…
Physically and mentally disabled Arkansans receiving federal disability benefits drove the state’s ballooning Medicaid costs over the past five years.
Legislative auditors on Friday delayed until next week the release of a special report on Medicaid that Republican lawmakers had wanted released sooner, drawin…
The bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Little Rock endorsed Medicaid expansion Thursday, saying Catholic doctrine’s “pro-life ” tradition compels him to “suppor…
Arkansas’ Medicaid projected deficit has been cut by more than half to $61 million, largely because of the effects of the state’s payment overhaul, state Depar…
A legislative panel’s decision to speed the release of a special audit report on the state’s Medicaid program drew criticism Wednesday from Democrats, who sugg…
A House panel narrowly defeated legislation Tuesday that aims to prohibit insurance policies on the state’s insurance exchange from offering abortion coverage.
An unintended wrinkle in the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act gives about 87,000 foreigners residing legally in Arkansas the right to federal…
After a month of “grueling” debate, insurance-exchange planners arrived Thursday at a tentative solution for the shape, the size and the scope of habilitative …
Some Republican legislators aim to reframe the Medicaid-expansion debate by encouraging poor Arkansans to buy health coverage on the state’s insurance exchange…
Although Medicaid expansion and a payment overhaul will be “disruptive” to the way medical care works in Arkansas, the changes will benefit the state’s poor, i…
Covering up to 250,000 poor Arkansans by expanding Medicaid with federal help will make Arkansas more business friendly, especially for small companies, says G…
Three times wasn’t the charm for state health insurance exchange planners and developmental disability advocates Friday.
An answer from the federal government on whether Arkansas can “partially” expand Medicaid is unlikely before the end of February, and details of how it would w…
Expanding Medicaid coverage to 250,000 poor Arkansans could improve services for unstable mentally ill people in Arkansas — a group responsible for some of the…
The new chairman of the Senate Insurance and Commerce Committee said Tuesday that he favors ending the state’s partnership with the federal government for its …
New proposed Medicaid rules would allow states to charge co-payments for Medicaid recipients in nonemergency uses of emergency rooms and prescription drugs, th…
Insurance-exchange planners wrestled again Friday with provisions in the Affordable Care Act requiring “habilitative” care to be offered on the state’s exchang…
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced Thursday that it will flex its corporate muscle with a $670,000 grant to help the state and private insurers harness rising heal…