Kaiser Health News: “New Plans for Uninsured Off to Slow Start”
Kaiser Health News published a story noting that “an unexpectedly small number of people” have signed up for the high-risk pool program established by the health care law. “About 3,600 people have applied and about 1,200 have been approved so far in state plans,” with another 2,400 in plans operated by the federal government in 22 states. “Connecticut could not provide an applicant total but said one person had been enrolled as of last week.”
State officials have been surprised by this poor showing for one of the health law’s “early deliverables.” North Carolina’s pool director notes that “interest in the program has been lower than we expected;” Colorado’s risk pool director called her state’s enrollees a “very low number given that there are hundreds of thousands of uninsured in the state.”
But despite this low initial enrollment, the high-risk pool program could STILL run out of money before its scheduled end in 2014, as one expert quoted in the piece observed. That’s because Democrats woefully under-funded the program – the Congressional Budget Office estimates by up to $10 billion – by choosing instead to fund backroom deals and “slush funds” for dubious new spending projects.
Many Republicans support high-risk pool programs to cover individuals with pre-existing conditions, but the Administration’s attempt to implement them seems to have fallen flat – thus far, many individuals aren’t getting covered, and those that do obtain insurance from the pools could have their coverage ended prematurely because Democrats failed to fund the pools adequately. Either way, that’s not the type of health “reform” that those with pre-existing conditions deserve.