Just released by the Connector. Also, materials for tomorrow’s Connector Board meeting have been posted.
Commonwealth Connector Health Insurance Authority Executive Director Jon Kingsdale announced today that 14,384 individuals are receiving the Commonwealth Care product that became available last month.
“There’s no doubt that the availability of Commonwealth Care will result in better health outcomes for our residents,” said Kingsdale. “People will be getting preventive care and medications rather than showing up in hospital emergency rooms.”
Among 50,000 users of the uncompensated care pool, more than 30,000 have already been deemed eligible for Commonwealth Care. Approximately 18,000 of those determinations were made in this month alone. Once people are determined eligible and receive enrollment materials, they have 14 days to choose one of four plans. Those who don’t are automatically enrolled in one of the least expensive plans. If they don’t switch to another plan within 14 days, the auto assignment becomes effective. Even after their enrollment is effective, they have 60 additional days to switch to another health plan.
“I am extremely encouraged that we have been able to meet the ambitious timetables established in the healthcare reform legislation,” said Kingsdale. “We are currently enrolling about 4,000 new members each week, and remain on track to enroll nearly 50,000 free care pool users by the end of January.”
There are a few things we need to understand before we begin to scrutinize something this new and complicated. The problem seems to be more of a national issue, the State of MA has one of the lowest percentage of uninsured folks in the country. Given our position as a state with many top acedemic medical facilities, I’m happy to see MA take on this challenge of attempting to create policy that will insure most MA residents. The Connector will oversee this process which includes residents who earn up to 100% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), these eligible folks will receive 100% subsidy from the State. The Conector will also oversee the process for residents who earn between 100%-300% of FPL which will allow for partial state subsidy for eligible folks. The Connector will also oversee the 19-26 dependent age plans and will oversee individuals and employers who would like to purchase insurance through the connector. The positioning of this legislation seems to bring the MA consumers one step closer to defined contribution.
I see the State’s approach as a way to hold employers and employees accountable for paying their fair share toward health insurance, essentially forcing those who have been innapropriately receiving free care to beging paying their fair share and to enter an arrangement whereby they can receive better coordination of care. Whereas this effort is the first of its kind, we all need to be patient and put our faith into the hands of Jon Kingsdale, who happends to be the perfect guy for the role of Executive Director of the Connector.
Great idea, wn (expand Medicaid), but
1. The Bush administration would absolutely not permit the state to expand Medicaid. All of the these people are not eligible under Medicaid rules, so Mass needed special federal permission.
and
2. Basically, that’s exactly what the state did. The benefits are the same as Medicaid, the providers are the same as Medicaid, the managed care plans are the same non-profit Medicaid plans, the co-payments ($1 generic/ $3 brand drug) are the same as Medicaid, the premiums (none) are the same as Medicaid, the enrollment system is the same as Medicaid.
So we got the best of it – a “Medicaid” expansion, yet approved by the Bush adminstration.
HCFA and the ACT Coalition advocated hard for that. The Romney Administration did not want it, and the Bush Administration would not have approved a waiver — providing most of the financing — done as a Medicaid expansion. So if we held to our guns and refused the deal we got, we would have won no expansion at all, and the 14K+ folks now enrolled would be uninsured today. From the perspective of a new enrollee, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between Commonwealth Care and MassHealth provided today by any of the four managed care plans — Network Health, Neighborhood Health Plan, Fallon, and BMC’s HealthNet. It’s damn good coverage.
That’s great that so many more poor people have state funded health insurance. But wouldn’t it have been much simpler, and cheaper for the state budget too, to just expand Medicaid eligibility to include these individuals with annual incomes below the Federal Poverty Level of $9,850?
This entire Connector Contraption calls to mind a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt:
“A little simplification would be the first step toward rational living, I think.”