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Massachusetts Commonwealthcare over budget
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The Commonwealth of Massachusetts efforts to provide universal health insurance has included a program referred to as CommonwealthCare. This plan enables individuals under a certain income limit (300% of the Federal poverty line) to buy individual health insurance at a subsidized premium funded, with the subsidy being provided by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
CommonwealthCare's enrollment, however, has been higher then expected leading to larger then expected deficits. In the last three months alone, enrollment has increased from 165,000 member to 177,000 members, and is projected to grow to 212,000 next year. In three months, enrollment has gone up 10%!!! Why has this happened? The word is getting out as to how easy it is to qualify when the benchmark is up to 300% of the Federal poverty line.
Here are the income qualification per family size:
1 $32,496
2 $43,716
3 $54,936
4 $66,156
5 $77,376
6 $88,596
7 $99,816
8 $111,036
For example, a family of 4 making less then 66,156 can qualify for subsidized health insurance. Would you have thought, before reading this that a family of 4 making 66,000 would be eligible for subsidized health insurance? Consider businesses that deal in cash and do not declare all their income? It gets worse, there is no asset test!!! Conceivably, you could have a two million dollar home debt free and $500,000 in the bank, but if your income falls under the guideline, you qualify.
The high enrollment in CommonwealthCare is one of the reasons that the projected cost in 2009 has risen from 1.56 billion to 1.9 billion, an increase of over 300 million dollars! The Commonwealth of Massachusetts needs to:
- Lower the income levels to make it more difficult to qualify.
- Implement and asset test like Medicaid does to qualify for nursing home payments.
If this does not happen, the 210,000 member projection for next year will be blown away and the cost of 1.96 billion will look cheap.
