Ark. starts insurance plan for low-income workers

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Enrollment began Dec. 20, 2006, in Arkansas for a program partly paid by Medicaid dollars that will eventually offer insurance to 80,000 low-income workers. The Associated Press reported that health officials hope the initiative will cut down on the number of uninsured in the state.

ARHealthNet will let small to mid-sized employers enroll workers in a plan financed with a mix of employer, state and federal funds. The program is based on legislation passed by Arkansas lawmakers last year that said the state would help pay for the benefits with proceeds from a court settlement with tobacco manufacturers. Health officials have projected it will cost the state $18 million over the next five years.

According to its Web site, www.arhealthnet.com, ARHealthNet is available to qualified small businesses with 2 to 500 employees who have not offered a group health plan in the past 12 months or longer. The plan is limited to working Arkansans through qualified employers and is not available as an individual plan.

Mexican truck travel still limited

Mexican trucker Brigido Moctezuma lives in a city just south of Mexico’s border with Texas, far from talks on whether he’ll be able to drive his loads of vehicle air bags all the way to assembly lines in Detroit. All he knows is that he and his boss’ fleet of trucks are ready, and have been for years.

“The line is ready. We’ve bought many new trucks; everything is in good order,” he said. “But it seems like every time it almost happens that we can go, it doesn’t.”

Access to all U.S. highways was promised by the year 2000 under the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement, as was access through Mexico for U.S. carriers. A similar exchange with Canada has been carried out without a hitch. But U.S. trucking companies, unions and environmental groups blame Mexico’s loosely regulated trucking industry. They contend that trucks used by Mexican carriers are older and poorly maintained, the result of that country’s less stringent environmental and safety standards.

Mexican carriers insist their rigs meet U.S. standards, but their trucks can’t go beyond a 20-mile border zone in Texas. Mexico has said the U.S. is reneging on part of its NAFTA role, and a February 2001 international arbitration panel agreed. President Bush said in 2001 said he would allow the trucks, and a June 2004 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court seemed to remove the last legal barrier. The court said that the president – not federal agencies – had ultimate say on whether the trucks could enter. The ruling in response to a lawsuit by Public Citizen against the U.S. Transpor-tation Department rendered moot the nonprofit’s efforts to keep out Mexican trucks until air quality issues are studied. But two and a half years later, the trucks still aren’t rolling.

Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen and former head of the NHTSA, said the sticking point is legislation calling for U.S. inspectors to perform safety checks at trucking companies in Mexico. Public Citizen is working on legislation requiring drivers from Mexico to have “black boxes” to record driving hours, something the group also is seeking in the U.S.