States have until tomorrow to let Washington know if they plan to participate in one of the first government programs to be launched under ObamaCare -- new high-risk pools for the uninsured. According to Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, the question states should be asking is: Why would we participate?
The high-risk program is essentially insurance for individuals who have pre-existing conditions and are expensive to insure, explains Turner:
* The new health law allocates $5 billion for insuring them until 2014 when enrollees would be transferred to new health-insurance exchanges.
* But Richard Foster, chief actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, reported last week that the high-risk program will run out of money next year or in 2012.
* Therefore, if states sign up for the program, they'll end up shouldering the burden for about two years after it runs out of federal money.
This will be a heavy lift considering the other costs ObamaCare is foisting onto states, one of which is the expansion of Medicaid, a joint federal-state program originally designed to cover low-income Americans, says Turner. Under ObamaCare, Medicaid will be expanded to cover 84 million people by 2019, up from about 50 million today, putting pressure on states' budgets.
BATR 2020 Election News
