The Arkansas Citizens First Congress, a coalition of 54 advocacy groups and charitable organizations, petitioned Wednesday for Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) to restore Medicaid coverage for more than 53,000 residents who didn't provide proof of their incomes within a 10-day deadline, according to an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette report.
Here are four things to know about the petition effort.
1. The Arkansas Citizens First Congress delivered a petition with 2,300 signatures asking Gov. Hutchinson to reinsure those whose insurance was canceled for failing to meet the deadline to provide proof of their incomes.
2. The coalition's petition comes after the Arkansas Department of Human Services stopped coverage for nearly 59,000 residents following a review of Medicaid recipients' eligibility. Of those 59,000 Arkansans, about 4 percent, or 2,400, were determined ineligible, according to the report. About 57,000 others did not respond to the state's request to provide proof of their income within the required 10-day period. About 3,600, or 6 percent, of those who received termination notices had their coverage restored or were not canceled when they provided the requested proof of income after the deadline.
3. The petition also follows an announcement last week from the human services department that it would start giving Medicaid recipients 30 days to respond to its requests for income-related records, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. However, the agency failed to give that additional time to about 17,000 Arkansans whose coverage was already set to end Tuesday for failing to provide the records within the previous 10-day limit, according to the report. An agency spokesman said Friday that federal authorities had not asked the state agency to retroactively apply the 30-day response deadline.
4. A spokesman for Gov. Hutchinson said the governor does not plan to rescind the cancellations, but he noted that those who lost coverage can have it restored by submitting income-related records to the human services department, according to the report.
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