Arkansas Citizens First Congress reports that 1,200 people signed a petition over the weekend asking Gov. Asa Hutchinson to rethink his intentions to kick 50,000 people off health insurance coverage despite the flawed implementation of income verification procedures and the abbreviated time for people to respond.
More grassroots voices couldn’t hurt. Information here.
The map of online response shows it comes statewide, as those affected fall statewide.
The letter to Hutchinson asks for a 60-day period before loss of benefits (the 90 days allowed by law would be even better). It says, in part:
Arkansas should stop kicking people off health insurance programs, even though the vast majority remain eligible. Nearly 50,000 Arkansans are blindsided now that they cannot fill their prescriptions or see their doctors despite working hard to play by the rules.
A private company would not cut off basic cable or telephone service with one notice and a 10-day demand — yet you are cutting off life-saving health care coverage in this poorly conceived process.
You can imagine the shock a family has when they lose coverage because they did not notice a poorly defined piece of mail and failed to respond within the Department of Human Services’s unreasonable 10-day demand.
Worse yet you can imagine their shock when someone loses their insurance even after doing everything they can to comply.
Arkansas families’ health and financial security is in jeopardy. But Governor you have the power to change it.