By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas Insurance Commissioner Jay Bradford today asked state legislators to signal their support for the state to apply for a federal grant to fund continued planning for a state health insurance exchange.

In a meeting with lawmakers, Bradford and Cynthia Crone, planning director for the exchange, said the grant likely would be about $5 million. The deadline to apply is Sept. 30.

The state previously received a $1 million federal grant to fund planning for the exchange, which under the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act must be operational by Jan. 1, 2014. The federal government will set up exchanges for states that choose not to create their own.

Bradford said Gov. Mike Beebe had directed the state Insurance Department not to apply for the grant unless legislators indicate they approve.

“If we don’t get a letter from the governor with your encouragement to go through the process (of applying), we’re bailing,” Bradford said.

During this year’s legislative session, a bill to authorize the Insurance Department to create an exchange died in committee. Beebe said afterward that legislators apparently wanted the federal government to run Arkansas’ exchange and said he would not override their wishes by issuing an executive order.

Bradford said today that giving the governor the go-ahead to seek the grant would not mean that legislators were approving creating an exchange.

“The governor is not asking anybody in this room to commit to the exchange. I think all he wants to know is if we have support to study it and make a final decision so we can stay in control,” he said.

Some legislators said they wanted more information.

“I’m going to have to have a budget with the numbers and where it’s going to be spent in front of me before I’m asked to support anything,” said House Minority Leader John Burris, R-Harrison.

Bradford said he would provide as much additional information as he could before
the deadline.

“How do we sell this to the people in our district if we don’t even know what’s
different about the federal program?” asked Rep. Mark Biviano, R-Searcy. “Because that’s what’s being used, saying, ‘Look, if we don’t do this the federal (government)
is going to come in.’ OK, well, is that a bad thing maybe? I don’t know, because I don’t know what the state’s going to do yet.”

Crone said many policy decisions have yet to be made.

“It’s really premature for us to know exactly what it would look like in Arkansas, but we are committed to flavoring it to best serve our people, given the opportunity to do that,” she said.

Rep. Barry Hyde, D-North Little Rock, said he had concerns about the exchange, but it appeared that applying for the grant would merely be a way of “keeping options open.”

Legislators said a bipartisan committee likely would be formed to decide what to tell the governor. Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said Friday the governor would accept whatever decision the committee reached.