LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - About 70 percent of the state’s more than 52,000 parolees and probationers have signed up for Arkansas’ compromise Medicaid expansion, prison and parole officials told a legislative task force Thursday.
Republican state Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson said providing medical insurance helps parolees and probationers seek mental health or substance abuse treatment and ultimately will help address the state’s problem with prison overcrowding. Under the Arkansas program, the patient cost for those services is capped at about $8 per visit, said Sheila Sharp, director of the state’s community correction department.
Hutchinson, who chairs the Legislative Criminal Justice Oversight Task Force, said during its first hearing that he’s also concerned a certification required by insurance providers in the expansion program, commonly called the “private option,” is making it harder for those in rural areas to find mental health or substance abuse treatment.
“I think this has a huge impact. Right now we’re placing terms and conditions on parole and probation. One of them is you can’t do drugs. Well, a lot of them are addicts and unless they get treatment, they’re going to fail,” Hutchinson said.
Task force member Robin Raveendran, who works at the health provider Alternative Opportunities, said the three insurance companies that offer plans under the expansion program require specific educational experience levels or certifications for mental health professionals that aren’t required by traditional Medicaid.
Hutchinson asked representatives from those insurance providers to research whether the requirement is necessary and how it could be addressed.
The task force, formed at the direction of Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, is charged with making recommendations to reduce the state’s growing prisoner population before the 2017 legislative session. The chairman said those recommendations will look at re-entry programs and other alternatives to increasing prison beds.
“The governor said he’s tired of building new prisons and that we’re going to have to change behavior,” Little Rock Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson said. “It’s a big-time shift in the philosophy that Arkansas has taken.”
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