By Kyung M. Song
The Seattle Times
June 9, 2009
(Washington’s Basic Health Plan) has been open to any Washington resident who earns less than twice the poverty level.
Officials with Washington’s Basic Health Plan are resorting to steep premium increases to achieve what they were loath to do on their own — expel thousands of working-class people from the cash-strapped state insurance program.
Ending weeks of deliberations, officials announced Monday that Basic Health’s premiums will increase by an average of 70 percent on Jan. 1 as part of an ongoing strategy to boot 30,000 to 40,000 people off the taxpayer-subsidized plan, which covers roughly 100,000 members.
The bulk of the cuts will come from changes already under way. On top of that, officials are hoping that boosting premiums will prod 7,000 to 17,000 members to leave the plan on their own, sparing the state the need to kick off people involuntarily.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009316386_basichealth09m0.html
And…
Healthy Families Program
State of California
June 1, 2009
With the failure of the May 19th ballot Initiatives and the worsening budget situation, the Governor’s May Revision proposed limiting eligibility for the Healthy Families Program to those children with incomes at or below 200% FPL.
In addition, because of concerns about the ability to borrow funds, (Governor Schwarzenegger) directed the Department of Finance to develop additional budget reductions. One of the proposals is closing the Healthy Families Program. Both of these proposals will go through the Legislative budget process for review and consideration.
http://www.healthyfamilies.ca.gov/MyHealthyFamilies/HFP_Remains_Open_For_Enrollment.aspx
And…
Budget Conference Committee on SB 61
California State Assembly
Health
June 5, 2009
The Healthy Families Program (HFP) is California’s version of the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
In this year’s initial May Revisions, the Governor proposed to reduce eligibility from 250 to 200 percent of the federal poverty level and to eliminate Certified Application Assistance. Subsequently, the Governor replaced these proposals with one proposal to fully eliminate the program.
http://www.senate.ca.gov/ftp/SEN/COMMITTEE/STANDING/BFR/_home/2009conf/6509CCHealth.pdf
Comment:
By Don McCanne, MD
Because of the very high costs of health care, the private insurers have not been able to offer products to low-income individuals that they can afford. In response, the federal and state governments have enacted programs designed to meet the health care needs of low-income individuals, usually financed jointly by the federal and state governments and administered by the states.
The current leading reform proposals would expand these programs to cover more of the low-income population. Is this a wise policy decision?
Most states have balanced budget requirements. Whenever spending exceeds revenues decisions must be made to either increase taxes or cut programs. Voters tend to penalize politicians who increase taxes. On the other hand, low-income individuals have a very weak political voice, and many of them do not even vote. Thus programs for the poor are a prime target for the budget cutting guillotine.
This background sets up the kind of thinking that is taking place at the state level.
The administrators of Washington’s Basic Health Plan are calling for individuals to voluntarily leave the program, and they are ensuring cooperation by raising premiums to levels that are unaffordable, thereby pricing them out of health care. Framing this as a voluntary decision of the beneficiaries rather than a budget-cutting decision of the administrators is blatantly dishonest and only compounds the nefariousness of their complicity.
At least California Governor Schwarzenegger is not hiding behind face-saving rhetoric. He proposes to flat-out throw a million children off of the state’s CHIP program, even though that would disqualify California from receiving generous federal subsidies.
Instead of fixing our health care financing system so that it provides everyone with affordable access to all necessary care, which we can easily do (improved Medicare for all), our leaders want to build on our uniquely American system. Surely other states can help with our budget problems by finding more children to join the ranks of the million uninsured California kids. That would be uniquely American. (I still can’t believe that they’ll go through with this, but the mere fact that it is under discussion shows how sick our health care financing system is.)