Ark. Starts Insurance Program for Low-Income Workers

Low-income workers without health insurance are the targets of a new program announced by Arkansas officials.

Enrollment began Dec. 20 for a program partly paid by Medicaid dollars that will eventually offer insurance to 80,000 low-income workers, an initiative that health officials said they hope will cut down on the number of uninsured in the state.

Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and health officials announced the start of ARHealthNet, which will let small to mid-sized employers enroll workers in a plan financed with a mix of employer, state and federal funds.

“What this package does is it enables people to have a very basic, fundamental level of coverage that gets them access to doctors and hospital stays at a reasonable cost,” Huckabee said at a news conference announcing the program. “What we found is what none of us could do individually, all of us are able to accomplish by each contributing something.”

The program is based on legislation passed by Arkansas lawmakers last year that said the state would help pay for the benefits with proceeds from a court settlement with tobacco manufacturers. Health officials have projected it will cost the state $18 million over the next five years.

Employers with 500 or fewer workers that have not offered an employee health plan for at least one year will be eligible to participate in the program, DHHS said. Participation for employers is voluntary. Employers who choose to participate must provide the new coverage to all of their uninsured employees. The state will require all uninsured employees of participating businesses to sign up for the new benefit. Workers under a spouse’s or some other insurance plan don’t have to participate.

Monthly premiums for the program will range from approximately $30 to $300, based on gender, age and annual household income.

Every 12 months under the plan, ARHealthNet will cover seven inpatient days, 2 major outpatient services, 6 physician office visits, two prescriptions per month and a maximum annual benefit of $100,000. Enrollment began Dec. 20 and the benefits will begin in January, health officials said.

“This is really focused on those businesses that have never been able to offer health insurance to their employees,” said John Selig, director of the state Department of Health and Human Services.

Selig said state officials don’t have an estimate of how many people they expect to sign up for the program.

“If the program is not meeting the need of the critical gap, we’ll modify it to try and meet the small business needs,” said Joe Thompson, the state’s surgeon general. “We spent two years developing this with the small business community so we’ve obviously got some demand in the business community.”