The Obama administration will allow Arkansas to move forward with a widely watched plan to expand Medicaid to cover an additional 200,000 residents by giving most of them premium assistance for plans in the state health insurance exchange.
The CMS announced Friday that officials approved the state's application for a 1115 waiver granting permission for the demonstration program. Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat, persuaded the state's Republican-led legislature to approve the unusual strategy to win the new federal Medicaid funding available under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act without adding to the rolls of its traditional Medicaid program.