- Medicaid expansion in Arkansas got the backing of the state's new Republican governor but still needs super majorities in the state's House and Senate to survive.Legislative leaders indicate Gov. Asa Hutchinson will get his way. Hutchinson asked the Legislature last week to maintain the state's approach to Medicaid expansion through 2016. Arkansas was the first state to adopt the private option, which was backed by Hutchinson's Democratic predecessor but also has become popular in Republican-led states. Hutchinson noted, however, that even the phrase “private option” had become politically toxic in the state capital of Little Rock, and he asked for a legislative task force to study different ways to help residents get coverage if they can't afford insurance.
- The Iowa Insurance Division said last Friday that not-for-profit health insurer CoOportunity Health could not be saved and ordered its liquidation by the end of February. Iowa's decision comes roughly a week after Tennessee's co-op insurer, Community Health Alliance, froze all enrollments, signaling that it was having its own issues. The death of CoOportunity and the pressure surrounding Community Health Alliance demonstrate the difficulties new insurers face attempting to enter a marketplace that has traditionally been dominated by household names, said Sabrina Corlette, a lawyer and senior research fellow at Georgetown University's Center on Health Insurance Reforms. “It's not for the faint of heart,” she said.
- Long-awaited trials to test two potential vaccines against the Ebola virus will begin in West Africa within the next few weeks, U.S. health officials said last week. Plans are underway to conduct large-scale, random double-blind controlled trials of two vaccine candidates in Liberia and Sierra Leone. “A safe and effective Ebola vaccine will undoubtedly be a critically important tool to help prevent Ebola virus infections in future outbreaks,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Arkansas' Republican governor backs Medicaid expansion, and other news
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