Bill to keep Arkansas Medicaid plan advances

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(AP) – A bill reauthorizing Arkansas’ Medicaid expansion for
another year has advanced on the same day the state won federal approval for its plan to impose a work requirement on thousands of people in the program.The Joint Budget Committee on Monday endorsed the budget bill for Medicaid and the state’s Medicaid expansion program. The state’s hybrid expansion uses Medicaid funds to purchase private insurance for low-income residents. The bill now heads to the Senate for a vote.

The expansion program was created as an alternative to expanding traditional Medicaid under the federal health care law. It currently covers more than 285,000 people.

The committee endorsed the bill just hours after Gov. Asa Hutchinson and the Trump administration announced that the work requirement had been approved. The requirement is seen as key to winning the three-fourths support needed in the state House and Senate to approve the budget bill.

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