New WCCF Paper Summarizes Risks of Counting on Private Coverage to Work for Adults Near the Poverty Level
Most of the debate about the proposed changes to BadgerCare in the budget has focused on the fact that the Governor’s plan would cover far fewer people, but would cost considerably more than alternatives that accept the enhanced federal funding in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). I think that fact should be enough for policymakers, but there are also a number of other reasons why state lawmakers should use the enhanced federal funds to close the gap in BadgerCare coverage.
Another general reason for taking the ACA funding is that there are numerous risks in counting on the new health insurance marketplace, known as an exchange, to be an effective way of achieving affordable health care coverage for adults near the poverty line. A short new WCCF publication describes the various risks that make health care providers and consumer advocates very concerned about the practicality and timing of the proposed shift of about 100,000 current BadgerCare participants into the exchange.One of the risks that hasn’t gotten sufficient attention is that some of the adults who will be removed from BadgerCare will become uninsured because they aren’t eligible for subsidized coverage in the exchange. A glitch in the ACA excludes entire families from that subsidized coverage if a parent has an offer of employer-sponsored insurance, even if that employer plan only covers the employee. Preserving BadgerCare coverage for families would mitigate this risk.
As the short paper explains, if lawmakers do approve the Governor’s plan to end BadgerCare eligibility for parents and childless adults above the poverty level, they should at least reduce the risks by delaying the reduction in coverage for a year or two.
Read more here.
Jon Peacock
