Texas HHS Releases Proposal To Help Low-Income Residents Purchase Health Insurance

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 11 Dec 2007 - 6:00 PDT

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The Texas Health and Human Services Commission last week submitted a plan to the federal government that would redistribute Medicaid funds for safety-net hospitals to help low-income residents purchase health insurance, the Dallas Morning News reports (Garrett, Dallas Morning News, 12/5). Commission spokesperson Stephanie Goodman on Thursday said the state would divert $246 million from hospitals to create the Health Opportunity Pool, which would provide subsidies based on a sliding scale for residents to purchase insurance (Perotin, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 12/6).

Under the program, working Texas residents ages 19 or older could apply for subsidies to pay health insurance premiums for private or employer-sponsored coverage. Texas HHS Commissioner Albert Hawkins said that about 2.1 million adults would be eligible for subsidies and that funding would be distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis (Dallas Morning News, 12/5).

The state has about 5.5 million uninsured residents (MacLaggan, Austin American-Statesman, 12/6). The program initially would target the 480,000 uninsured parents and siblings of children enrolled in SCHIP. Having a family member in SCHIP means they would meet income requirements for the subsidy, according to the Star-Telegram (Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 12/6). "We want to create a culture of insurance in our state," Hawkins said (Austin American-Statesman, 12/6).

Hawkins said that the state's safety-net hospitals would not lose funding under the program because lawmakers approved $150 million in reimbursement increases in 2008 for hospitals that treat Medicaid beneficiaries, which would be matched by $246 million in federal funding. According to Hawkins, the additional federal funding could be used to fund the Health Opportunity Pool without reducing the $1.5 billion in federal funds hospitals receive annually for treating a disproportionate share of uninsured, low-income patients (Dallas Morning News, 12/5).

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