Human Services Director Cindy Gillespie has provided the monthly report to Gov. Asa Hutchinson on enrollment in the Medicaid expansion program enabled by the federal Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

She said 270,753 are now enrolled in Arkansas’s version of the expansion, known as the private option. Another 23,309 who’d applied were determined to be eligible for the regular Medicaid program and another 30,436 have been found eligible to enroll, but haven’t completed the process.

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Gillespie said she continues to work on a five-year plan for the “sustainability and affordability” of the state’s entire Medicaid program. Those plans are most likely to include more charges for recipients and other new elements that could reduce the number served.

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