Creating a Coalition for Coverage on Arkansas Medical News Inc.

Creating a Coalition for Coverage

By: CINDY SANDERS

There is strength in numbers.

In January 2007, 16 national healthcare organizations announced they had joined together and reached a consensus on policy approaches to increase the number of Americans with access to health insurance.

According to Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, the Health Coverage Coalition for the Uninsured (HCCU) looked at approaches that would be effective and could garner agreement from those with varying perspectives.

"It took a lot of conversations to reach consensus," he said of the several multi-day meetings where the organizations hashed out ideas and discussed concerns.

Pollack said the general divide was that more conservative groups wanted to focus on private-sector approaches only while the more liberal members pushed for publicly-funded solutions.

In the end, he said, "We felt we came up with a very substantive way to balance the two."

The coalition has opted to focus first on getting children covered and then turn its attention to adults. Typically, Pollack said, children in

families with income up to 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) are eligible for the state-run SCHIP program.

"For parents, the median income eligibility is about 60 percent of poverty. For childless adults, we do virtually nothing," he said, adding that it is a common misconception that adults under the FPL receive healthcare benefits. "If you're an adult and not a parent in 42 states, you can literally be penniless and not be eligible for Medicaid."

The coalition's proposal for Phase I – the "Kids First" initiative – calls for improved enrollment of eligible children in SCHIP and Medicaid programs by giving states the flexibility to deem an uninsured child eligible when he or she qualifies for other programming such as free or reduced school lunches. To cover increased enrollment, HCCU is also calling for federal lawmakers to adequately fund SCHIP as part of the pending reauthorization.

HCCU has also proposed a family tax credit for individuals and families between 100 and 300 percent of the FPL to help with the purchase of employer-sponsored health coverage. Private coverage certified as "meaningful" by the state would also be available for those whose jobs don't include access to insurance.

The proposal includes other public and private sector options such as establishing a state demonstration project, funded through federal grants, to allow states to craft creative approaches to expanding care; to expand Medicaid to all adults below the FPL; to support public and private safety net providers; and to create outreach programs to better communicate what options exist.

For the members of the coalition, the time is at hand to extend health benefits to those who are most vulnerable and can least afford coverage.

"We just want to do this as soon as possible. Right now we're focused on the children's portion, and then we'll focus on adults," Pollack concluded.

HCCU's 16 Signatory Organizations