Health Exchange Summit Cost $10k; Another One Planned

If you recall early in October, the Arkansas Insurance Department hosted a summit here in Little Rock that primarily focused on how implementing health care exchanges is "Good News!" for Arkansas.  If you missed it, you can read my coverage here.

I bring this up because I just heard back on the total cost of the summit which was $10,023.64. This included $6,931.97 for the Embassy Suites rooms, set up, and food; $5,275.75 for summit consultant fees, booklets, collating, event coordination, and printing; $33.92 for folders; and $557 in travel expenses for the keynote speaker. 

These expenses were offset by $2,775 in registration fess, which based on the $25 fee puts the attendee number around 111.  They did note that legislators, presenters and steering committee members did not have to pay.

But don’t worry – all this came from "free money" funded by the $1 million Level 1 federal grant that the state had already received for planning for the implementation of the health care exchanges, part of the ObamaCare puzzle.

If you missed the summit, Commissioner Jay Bradford and Arkansas State Surgeon General Dr. Joe Thompson will be taking their show on the road on November 7 as they "share a vision and report on progress" on "building a better Arkansas health system for the 21st century."  The event will be simulcast around the state from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM with locations at Batesville, El Dorado, Fayetteville, Fort Smith,  Helena-West Helena, Jonesboro, Mountain Home, Pine Bluff, and Texarkana.

More details can found here.