Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts has proposed spending about $156 million to subsidize health insurance next year for about 37,400 legal immigrants who became eligible when the (Massachusetts) Supreme Judicial Court last month struck down state lawmakers’ decision to exclude them from coverage. And you wondered how important judicial races were at both the state level and for the federal courts? Political correctness runs amok.
The Massachusetts Health Connector, which oversees the subsidized-insurance program, will begin enrolling immigrants on March 1. It will use savings to cover the cost of expanding the Commonwealth Care program, which serves adults who meet income eligibility guidelines, through the end of the current fiscal year on June 30.
For the next year, the governor’s budget proposal includes about $73 million from a proposed increase in the tax on tobacco and $44 million from Commonwealth Care’s surplus to pay for most of the cost of covering the immigrants. The remainder will come from the general fund, said Executive Director Glen Shor.
Still, the total is about $30 million shy of what state leaders originally estimated it would cost to add immigrants to the program. Connector officials said at a board meeting today that they would be able to afford the new members only if the average rate paid to health plans does not increase in the coming fiscal year.
Shor said he feels confident that the plans can adjust without cutting benefits for their enrollees.
“We believe health plans can continue to sharpen their pencils,” he said.
The yearly process in which the Connector contracts with health plans to serve enrollees in Commonwealth Care starts this month. Chief Financial Officer Jean Yang said the Connector will not accept a bid higher than $415 per member per month.
Boston Medical Center’s HealthNet Plan last year bid $447 and was the most expensive plan in the program. Executive Director Scott O’Gorman said he expects to be able to accommodate that Connector’s demands this year, largely because the legal immigrant population historically has been healthier — and less expensive to cover — than other enrollees in the program.
The Legislature in 2009 cut immigrants who had been in the United States legally for less than five years from the insurance program to save about $130 million. Some were enrolled in the cheaper Commonwealth Care Bridge program, which required people to pay higher premiums, restricted the hospitals and doctors they could use, and did not cover certain services, such as vision and hospice care.
The unanimous court decision, written by Justice Robert Cordy, recognized a reversal would be costly for the state but said money could not factor in the ruling.
The state will not receive federal matching dollars for coverage of immigrants, as it does for the rest of the Commonwealth Care program.
Shor said it will be “a good day” when the immigrants join Commonwealth Care again. But, he said, the Connector had worked to cover people as well as possible in the Bridge program.
“There was very good work done with very few dollars,” he said.
Had the Bridge program remained in place, it would have cost the state about $30 million next year, he said. Those enrolled in Bridge, about 13,400 people, will become eligible for Commonwealth Care March 1. The program will open for another 24,000 people on the Bridge wait list and others May 1.
As with anyone applying to the Commonwealth Care program, immigrants must meet income guidelines and have no access to employer-sponsored health insurance. The program covers the full cost of insurance for those who make up to 150 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $34,575 for a family of four. It pays a portion of premiums for those who make up to twice that amount.
Did Judge Cordy, Gov. Deval Patrick, Glen Shor even ask what the people of Massachusetts thought about this proposal? ICE News doubts it. After all, as the judge said “money could not factor in the ruling.”
Yeah, it’s not coming out of their pockets is it.
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