BILLS TO reduce Medicaid rolls now state law.

Work requirement sought

With no public fanfare, Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed legislation Thursday that endorses his proposal to remove about 60,000 people from the state’s Medicaid rolls.

An identical pair of bills, passed during a three- day special session that ended Wednesday, are designed to save the state money by limiting eligibility for the expanded part of the state’s Medicaid program, known as Arkansas Works, to adults with incomes of up to 100 percent of the poverty level, instead of the current threshold of 138 percent of the poverty level.

The state Department of Human Services also will seek to impose a work requirement on the Arkansans who remain on the program.

About 320,000 Arkansans — more than 1 in 10 state residents — were covered by the program as of March 31.

Hutchinson has said the people removed from the program will be eligible for similar coverage, subsidized by federal tax credits, through the state’s health insurance exchange.

The signing came the same day the U. S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would repeal parts of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, including changing how the tax credits are calculated and phasing out enhanced funding

for states, such as Arkansas, that expanded Medicaid.

Hutchinson spokesman Kendall Marr said the governor on Thursday morning signed all the legislation passed during the special session.

In addition to the Medicaid legislation, those laws will: shift $ 100 million in tobacco settlement money from a trust fund to a state budget reserve fund; make changes in legislative oversight to the agency responsible for the state’s health insurance exchanges; and make what were described as technical corrections to laws passed during the regular session dealing with ethics and medical marijuana.

DHS officials said they will send President Donald Trump’s administration an application next month for a waiver allowing the state to make the changes to Arkansas Works.

The department also will submit rules implementing the changes to state lawmakers for approval.

If the rules and waiver application are approved, the changes would take effect as early as Jan. 1.