Low Income Health Insurance On The Choppping Block In Pennsylvania
With AdultBasic set to end, critics of Blue Cross are unhappy, and with good reason.
During the late 90’s, Pennsylvania’s attorney general, along with other states, successfully settled a case against major tobacco, the funds of which went on to create AdultBasic, with added support by the Independence Blue Cross.
AdultBasic is a health insurance program designed to give low-income families limited health benefits for $36 per person, per month. At the moment, there are about 46,000 Pennsylvanians enrolled in the adultBasic plan, with about 400,000 on a waiting list.
During a time when universal healthcare has yet to be realized, programs like AdultBasic are necessary for families with few options. But Blue Cross wants to end AdultBasic by Dec. 31, 2010.
This is now a political issue. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato demanded that Independence Blue Cross extend AdultBasic’s expiration to June. 30, 2011, which they did, in effect buying enrollees a bit more time.
The extension, however, may not be enough to satisfy advocates in favor of the program. As long as funds allow for it, it would make more sense to let the program expire in 2014, when healthcare reform will finally be put into action.
Marc Stier, Pennsylvania state director of Healthcare for America Now, told Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jane Von Bergen, “It’s important for AdultBasic to continue because 46,000 people have no other way of getting health insurance coverage until the federal health reforms begin in 2014.”
But not everyone agrees with the opinions of Onorato and Stier. Von Bergen also offers a quote from a spokesman for Pennsylvania’s Attorney General Tom Corbett (also running for governor), who says, “to extend benefits to 2014 seems to be fiscally irresponsible at this point.”
The fate of AdultBasic is still uncertain, but healthcare providers and legislators now have until June 2011 to try and bring the issue to an agreed upon conclusion. Hopefully they will keep the interest of low-income Pennsylvanians in mind.
