Our View

Our View

More on Arkansas’ health care headaches

It is clearly evident that Arkansas officials have been, and continue to be, perplexed in dealing with their version of Obamacare that once was labeled as the Private Option and now identified as Arkansas Works.

We can go back to the days the Arkansas Department of Human Services wasted millions of our tax dollars trying to set up a computer system to track enrollees to the current problems, we brought up earlier, over health insurers wanting to raise their premiums on all of their policies to levels that will place financial hardships on countless thousands of Arkansans.

We’ve already pointed out that Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s administration is seriously questioning insurance providers regarding their requests, and now we’re told the governor wants the state to take over responsibility for its health insurance exchange that he says will lower fees paid by insurance companies and help slow premium increases.

Arkansas already helps regulate the plans on the exchange under a partnership agreement with the federal government. We’re told that if the exchange were designated as state-based, Arkansas would also have responsibility for certifying the plans.

If the state were to take on this responsibility it would result in lower fees paid by insurers and thus prevent or reduce future rate increases on policy holders.

Currently, the insurers in Arkansas pay the federal government fees equal to 3.5 percent of the premiums they collect for the plans. If the state takes over responsibility for the exchange, the federal government will stop charging the fee and instead, Arkansas would pay the federal government a fee equal to 1.5 percent of the companies’ premiums.

Keep with us here. To pay that fee and cover other costs associated with the exchange, the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace, a nonprofit agency created by the state Legislature, would charge its own fee to insurers.

The amount the state would charge insurers would be lower than the 3.5 percent fee charged by the federal government. Let us explain Arkansas’ situation.

Arkansas created the controversial private option in 2013 when Gov. Mike Beebe was in control. It was a primary way of extending coverage to adults with income up to 138 percent of the poverty level: $16,394 for an individual, or $33,534 for a family of four.

We’re told that as of current figures there are more than 260,000 Arkansas taking advantage of this subsidized health care insurance. There are many proponents of Gov. Hutchinson’s efforts to take over responsibility for its health insurance exchange because they say they would have more flexibility in making changes to Medicaid and other heath care programs if it sets up its own exchange, including the enrollment system.

To be totally honest, what we see is this being just the latest attempt to plug the hole in a leaking dam, and until there is a new president taking charge next year (not named Hillary Clinton) there will continue to be growing issues with this socialistic scam.

BIBLE VERSE

Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses; for they have been ever of old. Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness' sake, O LORD. Good and upright is the Lord: therefore will he teach sinners in the way. The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way.All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies.

25:6-10

Psalm