Arkansas lawmakers gave initial approval Wednesday to a $16.47 million federal grant to help enroll people in an insurance pool required by the federal health-care law.
The Arkansas Legislative Council’s Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review Subcommittee reviewed the grant with the state Insurance Department with no discussion. It still needs approval from the full council before funds would flow. The council is next scheduled to meet Tuesday.
The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires that every state set up an online pool where people can shop for private insurance plans. Arkansas chose to work with the federal government on its exchange after Republican lawmakers refused a bill in 2011 that would have created an Arkansas-run exchange.
More than 500,000 Arkansans who lack health insurance are expected to purchase coverage through the exchange. Enrollment starts Oct. 1.
About 250,000 of those eligible are expected to be low-income Arkansans who will purchase private insurance paid for by federal funds if the federal government accepts the “private-option” plan approved by Arkansas legislators during the 2013 session. Many others who purchase insurance through the exchange are expected to receive a federal subsidy if their income is less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level, up to $45,960 for an individual and $94,200 for a family of four.
With the two other grants the state has received in the past year, the federal government will have put $42.73 million forward to help Arkansas construct its portion of the exchange and encourage Arkansans to use it.
Cindy Crone, who is leading the creation of the exchange for the state Insurance Department, said if the council rejects the contract “we would lose funding for the outreach and education campaign and guide program before open enrollment even begins.”
Crone said the grant will go largely to helping people enroll in plans through the exchange.
That includes hiring people to help consumers one on one and creating a resource center for consumers to call with questions. It also creates eight positions in the Insurance Department, including a new attorney.
“Of the $16[.47] million, $15 million of it is toward consumers or consumer education,” Crone said.
Crone said the rest of the grant approved Wednesday will help the department finish selecting which insurance plans will be available on the exchange.
While the federal government will control the exchange, and the website people visit to compare private insurance plans, Arkansas’ insurance commissioner still has control of which plans will be available and what the plans have to cover.
The subcommittee also approved a $250,000 transfer to the Arkansas State Police from the attorney general’s office to help address a six-month backlog in concealed-weapons’ permit applications. Of that, $35,000 will go to purchase two new license printers.
Police spokesman Bill Sadler said after the meeting that the agency will take $185,000 of the money and hire as many temporary workers as it can. The other $30,000 is for benefits for those temporary employees.
He said as of Wednesday, there are between 4,000 and 5,000 permit applications at some stage of the approval process. Sadler said approval should take no more than 120 days. Another 300 or so permits have been pending for longer than 120 days because of problems with the applications, such as smudged fingerprints or gaps in the criminal-background history.
Sadler said some applications are currently with the FBI or are being sent back for new fingerprinting.
“At any given time we don’t know what the backlog might be,” he said. “It’s not that nobody’s doing anything. It’s a process that has many moving parts.”
He said 21,708 concealed-weapons permits were issued between Jan. 1 and May 20, or more than double the amount issued during the same time in 2010, 2011 and 2012.
“Those numbers fluctuate and most of the time we don’t really don’t know why,” Sadler said.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 05/23/2013