The vote on whether or not to approve funding for Arkansas’s Private Option, a bipartisan solution passed during the 2013 legislative session to provide health coverage to low-income Arkansans by using federal dollars to buy private insurance plans, was one of the defining issues of the 2014 fiscal session. Lawmakers voted to appropriate the money […]

Want to know more about the state of children’s health here in Arkansas? As Arkansas’s economy has begun to recover from the recession, ARKids First has been a vital resource to thousands of Arkansas families. The latest data on poverty in Arkansas shows that 27 percent of children under age 18 live in poverty compared […]

Arkansas veterans would benefit greatly from the new affordable coverage options available in the state. Statewide, 20,300 Arkansas veterans are uninsured. The state is considering whether or not to strengthen health care coverage for low- and moderate-income Arkansans. The proposed solution involves using Medicaid funds to purchase private health insurance plans for low-income adults – […]

Arkansas policymakers have choices to make in the coming weeks that will determine whether every Arkansan has access to affordable, high-quality health coverage beginning January 1, 2014. Research shows that better access to coverage is good for Arkansas. Our consumer- and child-friendly principles should guide Arkansas’s efforts to cover low-income families and improve access to […]

Arkansas has an opportunity to strengthen its Medicaid program and stimulate economic activity statewide by extending coverage to an estimated 250,000 uninsured Arkansans, including 10,000 children. Arkansas can cover parents and other adults with incomes up to 138 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), which is about $31,800 for a family of four. The […]

It’s the right thing to do. More than 240,000 Arkansas uninsured adults will now have health care coverage.Without it, low-income, uninsured adults who are currently not eligible for Medicaid will have no health care coverage option. 80,000 uninsured Arkansas parents below 138 percent of poverty ($31,800 for a family of four) will now have health […]

Medicaid works for Arkansas. It helps our disabled neighbors, elderly Arkansans, and thousands of children in low-income homes get care when they need it most. According to DHS officials, Medicaid will face a $138 million state budget shortfall in 2014 after help from $160 million in new state dollars ($70 million of which will be […]

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires states to have a health insurance “Exchange” that will provide high-value and affordable coverage for consumers, including individuals and small businesses, in place by 2014. The Exchange will be a marketplace where Arkansans can go to enroll in private insurance plans and, for those with income […]

In 2008, the national Closing the Addiction Treatment Gap (CATG) initiative was launched in Arkansas with support from the Open Society Foundation and with local support from the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation and the Arkansas Community Foundation. The goal of the initiative was to mobilize public support for expanding addiction treatment by increasing public funding, broadening insurance […]

It’s no surprise that recession has hurt Arkansas families, especially children. The state’s child poverty rate continues to increase and is now well over 27 percent. But new data on uninsured children provide some good news for Arkansas children and families—more Arkansas kids have health coverage than ever before thanks to ARKids First (Medicaid and […]