LITTLE ROCK — The state’s Medicaid director, Gene Gessow, said Tuesday that worries about a federal requirement to buy health insurance are overblown.
“That’s really not that different from having everybody pay for Medicare,” Gessow said. “In many states, employers don’t have a choice in paying for workers’ [compensation insurance]. In many states, automobile insurance is a mandate. So, the idea that this is something brand-new is just historically incorrect.”
Gessow was speaking to a gathering of about 10 people organized by the Arkansas Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank in Little Rock.
Greg Kaza, the foundation’s executive director, said the group is interested in health-care policy and wanted to hear from Gessow, who was hired in December to help the Department of Human Services reduce Medicaid expenses.
Gessow talked about Medicaid in general and specifically how Arkansas’ program will be affected by the health-care law passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama.
He said the requirement for health insurance coupled with subsidies from the federal government are meant to compensate insurance companies for being prohibited from imposing coverage limits on people with pre-existing conditions.
Having more people buying insurance increases the pool of people paying into an insurance plan, which makes it easier for insurance companies to cover care for higherrisk customers, he said.
The law will expand Medicaid to cover adults making less than 134 percent of the federal poverty level by 2014.
He said that’s a big change from the current law, which allows medical coverage for people 21 and older only if they are disabled or have a child and make less than 18 percent of the federal poverty level. Exceptions include nursing-home care.
Gessow said it’s unclear how the Medicaid expansion will increase the state’s Medicaid budget.
Currently, the state spends about $4 billion a year on Medicaid, about three-fourths of which comes from the federal government.
He said he doubted that would double but it would increase greatly.
He estimated that 200,000 Arkansans will be added to the Medicaid roll, each costing about $200 to $250 a month. That would be about $500 million. Those costs would initially all be paid for by the federal government, but Gov. Mike Beebe has projected that it could cost the state government about $200 million a year starting in 2017.
Arkansas, Pages 14 on 04/09/2010