Oct. 3, 2014 | A trio of state legislators visited the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) campus Sept. 17 for the third installment of Legislative Update, a semiannual panel discussion open to all students and employees hosted by the Image Council of the Professional Nursing Organization.

State Sen. Jonathan Dismang, State Sen. Linda Chesterfield and State Rep. Andy Davis participated in the hour-long discussion, most of which focused on the passage and implementation of the Arkansas private option and its impact on health statewide.

“Speaking to doctors and nurses around the state, I was surprised at how many of them didn’t know what the private option is,” said Davis of the feedback he’s gotten since the legislation was narrowly passed and continued in recent sessions.

“As legislators, those are the people we look to for input and feedback,” he said.

The law, summarized by the legislators themselves, uses public funds, mostly from the federal government, to buy private insurance for low-income individuals in lieu of enrolling them in Medicaid.

The legislators said the voice of the medical community will be welcomed in the upcoming session when securing continued funding for the private option will undoubtedly be a point of much debate.

“Reauthorization is going to be difficult,” Dismang said.

While the Legislature doesn’t have to pass a new law to continue the private option, it does have to pass a spending resolution allowing the state to fund it. Doing that requires approval from 75 percent of both houses in the Legislature.

Building that consensus will be a challenge, Dismang said. Likely it will be done by “tweaking” the law to include ties to workforce development. That is, the law would somehow encourage people to find jobs that offer or qualify them for private insurance.

“Ultimately, ideally, our goal would be that no one would have to be on the private option. Realistically, I don’t know that that’s a possibility, but I think you’ll see it gently pushed in that direction,” Dismang said.

Chesterfield noted that voters can and should provide feedback to their representatives, whether they agree with the law or not. Typically, critics speak out more than supporters, she said, but legislators want feedback from both.

“I’d like each and every one of you in here today to make a commitment to contact your legislator,” she urged the audience.

However, she argued that health care workers should be motivated to see the private option continued.

“I think it is in all our interests, but particularly your interests, to have a healthy population,” she said.

Invited by panel moderator Cherry Duckett, UAMS vice chancellor for governmental affairs, to address the law’s impact on UAMS, Roxane Townsend, M.D., vice chancellor for clinical programs and CEO of UAMS Medical Center, noted the dramatic decline in uninsured patients – from about 11 percent in January to less than 4 percent by June.

She praised the private option as a “brilliant solution” by the Legislature for meeting the mandates of the federal Affordable Care Act.

“People who were unable to do so before can now get the care they need and the medicine they need, and we thank you for that,” Townsend said.