The $5 Billion Allocated for High-Risk Pools Falls Far Short of Need
While 5.6 million to 7 million Americans may qualify for health coverage through the new temporary national high-risk pool program, the $5 billion allocated until 2014 will cover only a small fraction of those in need, potentially as few as 200,000 people a year, according to a new policy analysis from the National Institute for Health Care Reform (NIHCR).
The analysis—Health Coverage for the High-Risk Uninsured: Policy Options for Design of the Temporary High-Risk Pool—identifies key policy considerations in designing the temporary high-risk pool program created by the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to provide subsidized health coverage to uninsured people with preexisting medical conditions. The law includes insurance market reforms and income-based subsidies to make coverage more accessible and affordable, but most of these measures do not take effect until January 2014. To bridge the gap, the law provides for an interim national high-risk pool, modeled on those already operating in 35 states, scheduled to start July 1.
"While the law's goal is to bridge the gap for people who can't get affordable private insurance because of preexisting medical conditions until the full reforms occur in 2014, the limited funding means the administration will have to make hard choices to stretch the dollars as far a possible," said Paul B. Ginsburg, Ph.D., NICHR director of research and president of the Center for Studying Health System Change.
Posted on 6/27/2010 12:05:07 AM
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