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Our View

Medicaid issues not going anywhere soon

Well, well, well, after all this time it now seems one of the state’s private option’s legislative architects, is publicly coming out saying he’s concerned that health care costs of some enrollees are increasing the cost of coverage for others in the state’s individual insurance market and that we have a potential crisis on our hands.

And, his solution is Arkansas officials should consider transferring more high-cost enrollees from the state’s private option to the traditional, fee-for-service Medicaid program.

As we’ve said, Senate President Pro Tempore Jonathan Dismang, R-Searcy, a sponsor of the law that created this controversial health care program, now believes the financial burden these people are placing on this government subsidy is unsustainable.

Speaking to state officials at a recent Health Reform Legislative Task Force, Dismang said state leaders should examine whether the private option is serving its intended purposes, including helping to hold down individual insurance market premiums.

So then, why such concern from this politician who sold his fellow lawmakers on this government subsidy? Well, Dismang referred to a June 30 federal report showing that Arkansans covered in the state’s individual insurance market last year appeared to be more expensive than their counterparts in other states.

The report also shows that the state’s insurance companies, including those that participated in the private option, will receive about $90 million from a federal fund to offset the cost of insuring customers in the individual insurance market whose medical expenses last year totaled more than $45,000 each.

Let’s bring those of you unfamiliar with the private option up to date by explaining that it uses Medicaid funds to purchase coverage on Arkansas’ health insurance exchange for people who became eligible for Medicaid under the expansion of the program approved by the Legislature back in 2013.

The expansion extended eligibility to adults with incomes up to 138 percent of the poverty level: $16,394 for an individual, for instance, or $33,534 for a family of four.

Now then, under Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s administration, the so-called private option was changed to Arkansas Works and includes making changes that, if approved by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, would encourage enrollees to stay employed and take responsibility for their own health care, rather than depending on government subsidies.

Under Obamacare insurance companies are required to set premiums for their individual market plans based on the medical expenses of all their individual market customers in a state. In Arkansas, that includes private option participants.

Let’s also remember that prior to Obamacare and the state’s now Arkansas Works Arkansas’ was facing major financial issues in funding the state’s portion of Medicaid and now lawmakers talking about transferring “high risk” patients currently covered by the current system to Medicaid man could very well create additional financial issues.

Sen. Jim Hendren, chairman of the task force, said transferring high-cost enrollees from the private plans to traditional Medicaid is “kind of counterintuitive to the notion of insurance.”

And, he said, he wants to discourage enrollees from using hospital emergency rooms for medical needs that aren’t urgent.

It appears there is a growing fear that health care costs in Arkansas will be spiraling out of control if solutions are put in place soon.

Once again, let’s not be led to believe Obama’s famous notion that his Obamacare plan was “affordable.” Oh, how we’ve been deceived.