And another one bites the dust:
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, a former member of House leadership who’s viewed as a possible 2016 presidential candidate, announced he and the feds after months of negotiations agreed to a plan that will cover an estimated 350,000 low-income adult Hoosiers earning under 138 percent of the poverty level, or about $16,105 for an individual. It makes Indiana the 28th state (plus the District of Columbia) to opt into the voluntary coverage expansion….
There are several big changes from the original HIP 1.0 program for HIP 2.0.
People who make under 100% of FPL can’t be dropped for failure to pay premiums; instead they’ll have the option to pay premiums or co-pays with a 5% of family income maximum limit. Premiums are limited to 2% of family income (so a person at 100% FPL is paying no more than they would have with Cost Sharing Assistance Silvers), co-pays are upped for emergency room usage that does not result in an admission (similar to Utah), and the lock-out period for people who make more than 100% FPL but fail to pay premiums is reduced from a year to six months.
The model is a subsidized high deductible plan model. The deductible on a family plan is $2,500 where the recipient is expected to kick in 2% of family income to an HSA. The difference between the 2% of family income and is made up by a state contribution. Once the combined deductible is spent on services, the state/feds pick up 100% of the medical expenses. If expenses in a year are under $2,500 some of that money rolls forward to next year.
CMS, as they have in every other state that has asked turned down the request to tie job or job search requirements to Medicaid eligibility. That is a no go line for CMS.
The final interesting thing to note is that Indiana is going live with this plan next week. Initially most of the membership will probably be conversions from other state run plans as people just were not expecting this, but by the middle of February, newly eligible people will be signing up. I am curious if Healthcare.gov is ready to redirect people to sign up for HIP 2.0? I thought that Indiana could do a fast launch, but a one week launch is surpising to me. I would have guessed a month of final prep time.
Goblue72
Gay marriage. Healthcare reform. Ending Iraq War. Killing bin Laden. Saving US economy.
Worst. President. Ever.
Belafon
@Goblue72: From Wonkette (much better than Newsmax): Obama Is Bad Commie, Shrinks Deficit Again.
Capri
Since Pence has major designs on running for president some day, it makes me wonder whether the powers that be have decided that getting health care expansion will be a non-issue in the future. Either that or he trusts that his new, tax-payer funded propaganda outlet will spin it into something else.
crooksandliars.com/2015/01/gov-mike-pence-creates-his-own-taxpayer
Southern Beale
TN’s GOP Gov. Haslam is having a hard time selling his “Insure Tennessee” plan that will cover 200,000 low income residents. The wingnuts in this state seem to think it’s exactly the same as expanding Medicaid with Obamacare. He’s having a hard time convincing them that it’s not because, well, it’s not. LOL.
They love Obamacare, except for the “Obama” part.
HinTN
@Southern Beale: The amazing thing is that the hospitals are agreeing to pay the state’s portion as the federal coverage drops (all the way to 90%) in the outyears because they are DESPERATE for the program just to keep their doors open, save still the wingnuts can’t bring themselves to support it.
Patricia Kayden
More good news. I guess this puts a nail in Pence’s presidential aspirations. No way Rightwingers are going to support him now. Oh well.
humanoid.panda
So, I guess by 2016, the only states not expanding will Deep South states with a significant African-American population and Texas. Some things never change..
humanoid.panda
Oh, and Wisconsin too: Walker needs that Koch money to run for President, for pete’s sake!
Capri
@humanoid.panda:
Which is a shame because calling your insurance ” Alobomacare” is the best name ever.
Another Holocene Human
I’m glad they held firm on the job shit. What a way to kick desperately poor people and the disabled in the face. It’s supposed to be illegal to discriminate against the disabled in employment but ehaha, erm, excuse—ahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHHOOHOOHOOHOOHOO whew! ahahahahahaha you’re killing me you’re killing me
Another Holocene Human
@Capri: Of course it is, the base has the memory of botflies.
low-tech cyclist
I’d go with the Weird Al parody, “Another one rides the bus,” myself. Per Ken Kesey, you’re either on the bus or off the bus, and I’m glad to see Mike Pence having enough sanity (so rare a commodity among GOPers these days!) to get on the bus.
But that should of course kill whatever fragile hopes he had of competing for the 2016 GOP nomination. Given the description by the Iowa Republican’s Kevin Hall of Scott Walker’s “amazing list of accomplishments: Voter ID, defunding Planned Parenthood, rejecting Obamacare,” finding a way to say Yes to Obamacare isn’t gonna fly with the GOP rubes.
danielx
Update: Kinda off topic but still Pence. Brother Pence is now in the process of “clarifying” his desire to start a state-run news agency, or whatever he was calling it. Been my experience that when any pol says he or she is clarifying something, the translation is “I stepped in it and now I’m trying to scrape the shit off my shoes before anybody notices what I’m doing”.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Another Holocene Human:
My co-worker’s sister has grand mal seizures that are not always controlled by medication. She had a seizure on the job at Subway and that was the end of her employment history. What’s she going to do, sue to keep a crappy minimum wage job? Where does she get the money to do that?
jharp
I live in Indiana and though I have followed this closely it is just finally sinking in how fucking big this is.
Just like that 350,000 working poor Hoosiers will have health insurance. And I think it is worth about $2 billion annually to our economy.
I am really happy for them. I’m sure some will now be able to take their kids to the doctor for the first time.
It is long past time for the working poor to catch a break.
My motto is if you work full time you deserve respect, health insurance, a living wage, and after x number of years a pension.
And 350,000 hard working Hoosiers just got health insurance.
Hooray!!!!!!!