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INDIANAPOLIS – Lawmakers questioned state officials Tuesday about how to get more people on the successful Healthy Indiana Plan for uninsured Hoosiers.
But there were no easy answers.
The plan covers people who do not live with dependent children and parents who earn up to $44,000 annually for a family of four. To qualify, a person must be uninsured for six months and not have access to insurance through an employer.
The Healthy Indiana Plan may require a recipient to pay a small monthly fee based on income, and it does not cover vision, dental or maternity services.
The state has 46,000 Hoosiers enrolled in the program, more than half of whom are childless adults. But a federal waiver caps that population at 34,000, and there is a waiting list of more than 20,000 childless adults.
Seema Verma, a consultant for the Family and Social Services Administration, said the state is not allowed to increase the number of childless adults above the cap without proving budget neutrality to the federal government.
That essentially means the state has to find savings in another area to cover this group of recipients.
Verma said the agency is looking into whether the state can use savings from a pharmacy-benefits consolidation to cover an additional 7,000 childless adults. But the federal government would have to approve.
Enrollment for childless adults was closed in March. But Verma noted that enrollment might reopen soon because some childless adults have dropped out of the program because of non-payment or because they had children since joining the program.
Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary, questioned whether the state could use some of its $208 million program balance – revenue from a cigarette tax increase – to pay for the entire cost of more childless adults to be on the program.
“The waiting list is haunting,” he said. “If we’ve got this kind of money in the bank, why not use some of it?”
The total cost for a childless adult is about $4,700, and the state pays about a quarter of that.
And Sen. Pat Miller, R-Indianapolis, chairwoman of the Select Joint Commission on Medicaid Oversight, wants to increase the income level at which Hoosiers could join.
But Verma cautioned that tobacco sales and revenue are dwindling and the state needs to maintain a safe cushion.
“Funding problems would come sooner rather than later,” she said.
