Private Option Funded Through June 2016.

The AP (2/6, Demillo) reports that the Arkansas Legislature reauthorized the state’s “private option” Medicaid expansion program on Thursday, meaning the plan “will survive another year.” The Arkansas House voted 82-16 to reauthorize funding through June 2016. The measure now heads to Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R), “who had called on lawmakers to continue the program while a proposed task force looks at alternatives for covering the more than 213,000 people currently in the program.”

Arkansas News (2/6) reports that the Arkansas House on Thursday also “approved a bill that would end the private option on Dec. 31, 2016, and create a task legislative force to look for alternative health care reforms that could replace the Medicaid expansion program after that.”

The Baxter (AR) Bulletin (2/5) also reports the story.

From AMA Morning Rounds, 2-7-15.