The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will be awarding high-risk pool grants this month to states looking to cover operational losses and fund disease management and other programs.
Despite the recession, the number of people enrolled in many state programs has remained stable.
New Hampshire’s high-risk pool, the New Hampshire Health Plan, had approximately 1,140 last year at this time, said Executive Director Mike Degnan.
Enrollment took a “significant dip” after October because people couldn’t afford the premiums, he said. State officials implemented a low-income premium discount in January 2009, using $325,000 received in a CMS bonus grant last year, and saw enrollment rise and stabilize to approximately 1,164 since June.
“People who were on the verge of losing their jobs had the opportunity to stay in the program,” Degnan said. “The discount program clearly had a significant impact on our subscriber base.”
CoverColorado’s pool continues to grow by at least 20 percent over the same monthly periods in 2008, from 7,100 members in January 2008 to more than 9,600 on July 1, 2009, said Executive Director Suzanne Bragg-Gamble.
The CMS grants will not be enough to cover the cost of all the new members, she said. “We believe we’re to receive $1.8 million. which in present times would pay about one week’s worth of claims,” she said.
Mississippi’s high-risk pool population has been steady at 3,500, said Lanny Craft, executive director of the Mississippi Comprehensive Health Insurance Risk Pool Association. The CMS grant of $1.4 million that the state received last year for operational costs helped keep premium levels consistent and reasonable, he said.
The Oregon Medical Insurance Pool currently has 15,000 enrollees, and that number is projected to remain the same for the next two years, said Manager Tom Jovick. Despite a large increase in unemployment in the state, subsidies from the Family Health Insurance Assistance Program, before it capped enrollment, and the Oregon Health Plan have helped keep people in the program, he said.
Still, he said, with companies going out of business or dropping group coverage, a significant number of people can’t afford the program’s premiums, let alone deductibles or co-pays.