Medicaid Expansion in Arkansas: A Timeline

April 22, 2021 - ACHI

This week, the Arkansas General Assembly sent to Gov. Asa Hutchinson an appropriations bill that includes funding for Arkansas’s Medicaid expansion program for the 2021-22 fiscal year. Earlier in the legislative session, the governor signed into law a proposal to replace the current program, Arkansas Works, with a revamped version, Arkansas Health and Opportunity for Me, or ARHOME.

Medicaid expansion was made possible by the federal Affordable Care Act, the most sweeping overhaul of the American healthcare system since the creation of Medicaid and Medicare in the 1960s. Arkansas was the first Southern state to expand its Medicaid program under the law. Today (April 22) we updated our timeline of Medicaid expansion in Arkansas to include the latest developments.