Arkansas is back in the spotlight over health insurance. This time it is for good reason, a really good reason.
We've been separated out from other states because of a significant drop in the numbers of uninsured residents, which ought to be celebrated not just by those newly insured but by the rest of us, too. We all benefit from a healthier population.
The news?
A Gallup Inc. survey found only 12.4 percent of Arkansas adults were uninsured at the end of June this year, compared to 22.5 percent in 2013. The 10.1 percentage drop was the largest of any state in the nation.
We can't brag too much about the number because Arkansas had more ground to make up than other states. We used to have the second-highest percentage of uninsured adults.
Still, comparatively, Arkansas is outperforming other states and gaining some national kudos for the effort. One national newspaper headline even proclaimed Arkansas the "best state in America" for reducing its uninsured. No state has made progress faster, crowed a Washington Post opinion writer.
How often does that happen? And why?
Credit the expansion of Medicaid in Arkansas for the change.
Credit, too, Arkansas' unique "private option" insurance plan.
And, yes, credit the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, as its detractors label the Obama administration's primary domestic initiative.
Expansion of Medicaid came with Obamacare as did the creation of the insurance exchanges through which so many more previously uninsured Arkansas residents have found affordable, often subsidized health care coverage.
Obamacare also let thousands of young adults up to age 26 stay on their parents' plans and made insurance available and affordable to people with pre-existing conditions. But few people even mention those or other benefits secured in Obamacare's earliest days.
Arkansas' Legislature necessarily tweaked the Medicaid expansion program, securing a federal waiver to let this state buy private insurance for those who qualified rather than adding them directly to the state's Medicaid rolls. But they did it and let those Obamacare dollars flow to Arkansas.
At least, they are flowing now.
The exasperating truth is that even many of those benefiting from the availability and affordability of health insurance still dismiss the value of the law. Calls for its repeal continue four years since its passage.
Granted, there are legitimate questions to be answered over the long term about Obamacare. It is a huge undertaking and an expensive one deserving of constant review.
But who can argue against the idea that the 2010 law's passage and implementation helped substantial numbers of Arkansas residents? Or that it has brought about other positive changes in the health care environment, like a reduction in emergency room visits that is impacting the viability of some Arkansas hospitals?
Arkansas lawmakers, particularly those in the Republican leadership, certainly made Medicaid expansion more palatable politically by conjuring up the private option program.
Without that, Arkansas would most likely be among the states that have refused to expand Medicaid and would today be nearer the bottom, rather than the top, of the list of uninsured.
Thankfully, those lawmakers did find the votes to enact the private option and move this state forward in health care.
The program was tested again in the last session and survived as lawmakers reallocated funding.
Obamacare is still a campaign issue, of course, and that means the Arkansas program -- whatever it is called -- isn't totally secure.
That's a problem for the newly insured Arkansans, for those who may want to participate in the future and for those who've benefited indirectly from its existence.
Candidates and voters alike have been so busy taking sides in the political debate that they seem to have missed the fact that the gradual implementation of the Affordable Care Act is indeed bringing about significant health care objectives.
Reduction of the numbers of uninsured is among those objectives. And it is happening in Arkansas by the hundreds of thousands.
As of mid-year, more than 184,000 newly eligible Arkansans had been approved for Medicaid coverage and 38,000 more had enrolled in non-Medicaid plans through the exchange.
That's a huge drop from the roughly 475,000 Arkansas adults who, according to a U.S. Census Bureau survey, had no insurance in 2012.
The numbers should drop even more when the enrollment period opens again, allowing still more of the state's people to gain the peace of mind that comes with health insurance.
Not so long ago, in the pre-Obamacare environment, too many people in Arkansas either couldn't afford or simply couldn't get health insurance.
That changed with Obamacare. Whether it continues depends on how voters respond to unceasing anti-Obamacare political rhetoric even in the face of obvious Obamacare success, particularly in Arkansas.
BRENDA BLAGG IS A FREELANCE COLUMNIST AND LONGTIME JOURNALIST IN NORTHWEST ARKANSAS.
Commentary on 08/13/2014