In the coming weeks, Wisconsin will begin for the first time to offer a statewide health insurance plan for low-income adults who don’t have dependent children. Statewide implementation of this new coverage, know as the BadgerCare Plus Core Plan, will be a major step forward in Wisconsin’s efforts to reach the Governor’s goal of ensuring that 98 percent of state residents have access to health insurance.
The Department of Health Services will begin taking applications on June 15, and coverage will begin after July 15. The new plan is available for childless adults with incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level ($21,660 per year for a single person or $29,140 for a married couple). To qualify for coverage, the individual must not currently have access to insurance from an employer and cannot have had private insurance in the previous 12 months. However, there are several “good cause” exceptions, such as being laid off or fired from a job through no fault of one’s own.
A new paper on the WCCF website summarizes the BadgerCare Plus Core Plan and examines the gap in existing insurance coverage that it will help fill. The paper also discusses some of the factors that enable the state to proceed with implementation of the plan in spite of the recession. Those factors include the substantial federal Medicaid funding provided in the economic stimulus plan and the agreement by Wisconsin Hospitals Association to a new hospital assessment, enacted in February 2009, with a portion of that new revenue and the federal matching funds being using for the childless adult coverage.
A key consideration in the Governor’s decision to move ahead with the Core Plan and in the Wisconsin Hospital Association endorsement of the hospital assessment is the importance of reducing the “hidden tax” – i.e., the cost shifted onto other health care consumers because of uncompensated care provided to the uninsured. By allowing the new childless adult coverage to proceed and by protecting gains made in covering children and parents, the budget repair bill and biennial budget bill create a health care system that is more focused on cost-effective preventive care, while also capturing federal matching funds that are not available to the state and to providers when uncompensated care is provided to the uninsured.