FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas’ surgeon general said recently that up to 90 percent of this state’s uninsured will be eligible for health insurance under the new federal health care law.
That sounds promising.
We’re talking about the same law that has been soundly criticized by many but which nonetheless passed the U.S. Congress and was signed into law by President Obama earlier this year.
It is expected to be a big focus of the mid-term elections as politicians on either side of the issue make whatever hay they can of the controversy.
In Arkansas, it’s bound to be part of U.S. Rep. John Boozman’s attack on incumbent U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln. She voted for the bill and has famously claimed credit for and denied being the pivotal vote in its passage.
She was the 60th announced vote of the 60 votes needed in the Senate to move the issue forward.
That’s pretty pivotal, anyway she might parse her words.
Whatever any of the candidates say, what ought to matter here is what Dr. Joe Thompson, the state’s surgeon general, was talking about when he said that up to nine in 10 uninsured Arkansans will eventually be eligible for health insurance.
The number of people now without insurance in Arkansas is estimated at up to 500,000 aged19-64. That’s an awful lot of folks who are one bad accident or one serious illness away from disaster.
About half of them, according to Thompson, are young working families. Their children may be covered by ARKids First, the state’s low-income insurance program; but the adults go uninsured.
The family resources, Thompson said, just don’t meet the cost of insurance coverage.
That’s reality for families with incomes so low that it’s difficult just to meet day-to-day costs for food, clothing and transportation.
And there are plenty of them in Arkansas, which ranks 45th among the states in per-capita income.
But this new federal law should enable most of these young working families - and other uninsured Arkansans - to buy coverage or to qualify for Medicaid.
As Thompson told a committee of the state House of Representatives recently, manylow-income Arkansans will be eligible for a tax credit to offset the cost of buying health insurance or will qualify for Medicaid under new rules to be implemented in 2014.
The new rules increase the amount of income an individual or family may have to be eligible.
States will have to offer Medicaid to anyone who makes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level.
That expanded Medicaid coverage will be funded for the first two years by the federal government, with the state picking up 10 percent of the cost by 2020.
The percentage will be phased in, but Thompson estimates the full 10 percent for that element of health care reform to be about $200 million annually for the state.
Admittedly, there are costs, both in federal and state tax dollars, to make this change in health care coverage. And there is considerable disruption to the status quo ahead for the business, insurance and health care communities as the changes are implemented.
That’s really what much of the political haranguing has been about - all done by folks with insurance and no fear that they or someone close to them can’t afford even basic health care.
BRENDA BLAGG IS A COLUMNIST FOR NORTHWEST ARKANSAS NEWSPAPERS.
Opinion, Pages 5 on 07/28/2010