Private Coalition Helping Publicize Private Option

Arkansans for Coverage, a new coalition of health and human services organizations, announced Tuesday that it will help Arkansans learn about their health care options and enroll in coverage using a $300,000 grant from the Fred Darragh Foundation.

The coalition was created in response to legislation passed this year by legislators prohibiting state agencies from publicizing the private option, the state program that uses Medicaid dollars to pay for private insurance for low-income residents. The law also prevents state agencies from publicizing the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace, the exchange where consumers can purchase subsidized health insurance. The group also will advocate for a smoother enrollment process.

The coalition involves Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, the Arkansas Hospital Association, Arkansas Interfaith Alliance, Arkansas Minority Health Consortium, Partners for Inclusive Communities, and Community Health Centers of Arkansas.

The money will fund four “assister” positions at community organizations – one each at Mental Health Council and at Future Builders, Inc. in central Arkansas, one at Tri-County Rural Health Network in Jefferson County, and one at Legal Aid of Arkansas in Northwest Arkansas. Those assisters will help Arkansas residents enroll in the private option and other health care payer systems. The money also will pay for outreach efforts to the assister community, including newsletters and webinars.

That’s just a “drop in the bucket” compared to the need, according to Arkansas Advocates Executive Director Rich Huddleston. Sarah Pearce, Arkansas Advocates health care policy fellow, said the Arkansas Insurance Department had funded 500 assisters until the legislative act removed that funding. Most of those stopped working on June 30, she said.

Huddleston said the coalition is seeking other funding sources.

Arkansans also can be enrolled in these programs with the help of insurance agents. Matthew Glass of West Memphis-based Fidelity Insurance Group said he is paid $144 for initially enrolling recipients in the private option and half that amount every year they renew. He said that, in his area of the state, potential clients abound.

“I saw a gold mine,” he said. “I live in an area of the Delta where our population, we have thousands of people who are eligible for the private option.”

Glass said few insurance agents in his area are trying to enroll consumers in the private option. He is one of them. Crittenden County Farm Bureau is another, agent Brian Horton wrote in an email. Without outreach efforts, interest among insurance agents would dwindle, Glass said. A lack of outreach will reduce enrollment because many eligible Arkansans remain unaware of the program.

“I can’t tell you the number of people that I’ve personally met, enrolled in either the private option or a plan on the exchange, that the first words out of their mouths were, ‘I had no idea these programs even existed,’” he said.

Arkansas Advocates earlier this month released the results of a study and a focus group that found that 92 percent of consumers who received personal assistance obtained the information they needed about their health coverage eligibility.