New budget agreement, now Rendell’s plans to expand adultBasic health insurance
By: Health Insurance
Submitted: 2009-09-23 17:20:58 | Word Count: 470
Now that Governor Rendell has accepted the newly revised budget agreement last Friday, his plan to expand the state's adultBasic health insurance program will hopefully be underway. At least that's what the nearly 200,000 Pennsylvanians waiting for enrollment are hoping.
The expansion would increase the number of adultBasic enrollees to 90,000, from the current 43,817. The state plans to pay for this expansion with federal money. According to the Governor's office, many other states are using available federal funds to help pay for uninsured adults, and now Pennsylvania needs to take advantage of the federal funds to help more people and offer better coverage.
Currently the state pays about $300 a month, per enrollee, and the coverage doesn't include prescription drug or behavioral health benefits. With the expansion, the federal government's matching funds would equal 54% of every dollar spent. The state's cost would decrease to about $138, depending on the enrollee's family income, and the coverage will include prescription and behavioral health benefits for both the current and new enrollees. Enrollees will continue to pay the monthly premium, although it is unknown at this time if the premium cost will increase.
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The governor intended this expansion to be a bridge to the federal universal healthcare program and will have a four-year sunset, unless a program is passed sooner. Due to the current economic crisis, the number of uninsured has grown to more than 1 million people in Pennsylvania, about half are working adults who can't get health insurance through their employer.
The new state budget was due on July 1, 2009, when expanded adultBasic could have began with federal approval. Eighty-three days later, the uninsured will continue to wait while lawmakers iron out the details of the budget. Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Phila.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, told the Philadelphia Inquirer the proposal has not yet been endorsed by House Republicans, but should take about 10 days to draft and pass. It must clear the joint legislative conference committee and then pass both chambers without amendments.
"The agreement itself is the easy part," Evans said. "This deal will not fall apart. But we have to do the mechanical parts of it."
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