The Arkansas Insurance Department has certified the cessation of the Arkansas Comprehensive Health Insurance Pool (CHIP). The high risk pool’s termination returned $8.15 million to the state’s general revenue fund.
The CHIP was created in 1995 to provide insurance coverage to those with high-risk conditions who could not secure “cost-effective” coverage on the individual market due to their specific ailments.
In 1997, the Arkansas General Assembly permitted the CHIP to become a qualified high risk pool.
After the Affordable Care Act passed, the General Assembly passed Act 713 of 2013, which provided for the end of the CHIP’s operations by the end of December 2013. The bill instructed that the CHIP board should submit a report detailing that it had completed all the requirements of the law to both the legislature and Insurance Commissioner. . The law also mandates that any excess funds in the high risk pool after its termination should be transferred to the state general revenue fund.
“My thanks to the members of the CHIP Board of Directors, who have ceased operations of the pool in a professional manner, and in accordance with Arkansas law,” said Arkansas Insurance Commissioner Allen Kerr in a public release April 13.
