Many parents who explore new health-insurance options made available through provisions of the 2010 federal healthcare overhaul will find that their uninsured children already qualify for the state’s ARKids First plan, public-health experts said Friday.

Though many of those children may have qualified for ARKids First for years, their parents may have been unaware that it was an option for their families, the experts said.

Indeed, a majority of the state’s uninsured children qualify for the state plan, a situation that has spurred public-awareness campaigns and enrollment efforts for years. Children from families with household incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level qualify for the program. In 2013, the poverty level is $23,550 for a four-person household.

Early indications are that the attention generated by the new health-insurance exchange - opened Tuesday as part of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - will help some parents recognize that ARKids First is an option as they seek previously unavailable options for the adults in their households.

“We’ve been talking about this for a long time,” said Anna Strong, health-policy director for Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. “We know that enrolling parents gets kids to the table and gets kids enrolled.”

The healthcare.gov federal website designed to help uninsured people explore new insurance options available through the law is four days into its launch. Heavy traffic has overwhelmed the website, and federal organizers announced plans Friday to improve the site to help more people enroll in insurance plans.

People who don’t have employer health insurance or whose employer-provided insurance is considered too expensive can purchase coverage through the exchanges on healthcare.gov. They may qualify for federal subsidies to help cover the cost, depending on income levels.

About 250,000 Arkansas adults with incomes of up to 138 percent of the poverty level - $15,860 for an individual or $32,500 for a family of four - are estimated to be eligible for the “private option,” a name given to a plan to purchase private insurance through the insurance exchange using Medicaid funds.

The Arkansas Department of Human Services, which oversees the state’s Medicaid program, received responses from 55,443 adults to whom the agency sent letters last month. The responders were among 132,000 food-stamp recipient households that the department determined are eligible for the expanded “private option” Medicaid program on the basis of their incomes.

The agency also identified 9,050 children who are eligible for Medicaid under the ARKids program, Human Services Department spokesman Amy Webb said this week. And the department enrolled 2,539 children in ARKids First as a result of responses to the letters, she said.

While their parents’ new insurance coverage will start Jan. 1, those children were added to the ARKids rolls right away.

“We know that the earlier you can get children enrolled in health insurance, the better chance they have in leading a healthier life,” Webb said, adding that healthier children will put less of a financial strain on the state’s Medicaid program if they qualify as adults.

The Human Services Department and nonprofit organizations across the state have long sought to help parents enroll qualifying children in the ARKids First program.

Arkansas ranked fourth in the country at enrolling eligible children in state children’s health insurance programs, such as ARKids First, in 2011, according to a May report by Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. Of the 46,000 Arkansas children under 18 who are uninsured, about two-thirds are eligible for ARKids First, Strong said.

Many of those children have parents who might use the new insurance options.

Of the recipients who responded to the Human Services Department’s letter to potential “private option” recipients, 257 enrolled in insurance plans Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday through the state website access.arkansas. gov, 200 through paper applications and 56 over the phone, Webb said.

It may take some time to determine how many of the state’s uninsured seek coverage through the new options, officials said. Consumers have until Dec. 15 to enroll for coverage that starts Jan. 1, which means it may take some time for families to select from among plans, said Heather Haywood, spokesman for the Arkansas Insurance Department.

Healthcare.gov launched to anecdotal reports of glitches and delays that made it difficult to use. A reporter who tried to use the website Friday was able to input some personal information before the site froze and became unresponsive.

Federal officials announced late Friday plans to make the site - which serves 36 states - unavailable during off-peak hours over the weekend while they repair and improve it.

The upgrades include extra capacity for more users to get into the system, more technicians working round-the-clock to fix problems, and new pathways to get to the application faster. Call centers also are getting more workers, and the federal Health and Human Services Department said wait times are now down to under a minute.

Haywood said the state Insurance Department will eventually have periodic reports to track how many Arkansans are enrolling through the exchange.

And Webb said many who have successfully used the website to determine what insurance they qualify for may take some time before they commit to a plan.

“We don’t expect everyone to go all the way through the process on the first day,” she said.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 10/05/2013