Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Vigorous Uptake for Healthy Indiana

Categories: Indiana

The Healthy Indiana Plan shows how consumer-driven coverage can help in the public sector, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Shelley Ross was the first of about 28,000 lower-income people who have signed up so far for the Healthy Indiana Plan, meant to subsidize coverage for adults who have no insurance. She signed up in December, had a cataract excised soon after, had the mammogram she was putting off. Demand to enroll in the program has been three times what officials expected, says Mitch Roob, the state's secretary of social services. Medicaid covers catastrophic care when bills exceed $1,100 a year. For routine care under that, the patient pays out of an account funded jointly by the state and the policy holder. Anything left over in the account rolls over to next year. The price is right for Ross, who makes about $25,000 a year. At $91 a month, "I'm smiling when I write that check," she says. "It's not like I wanted a free ride."