CommonwealthCare

My latest entry on the Examiner:

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 overty line) to buy individual health insurance at a subsidized premium funded by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

CommonwealthCare's enrollment 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 $32,4962
2 $43,7163
3 $54,9364
4 $66,1565
5 $77,3766
6 $88,5967
7 $99,8168
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 making 66,000 with a family of 4 being eligible for subsidized health insurance? What about the businesses that deal in cash and do not declare all their income? They will qualify. It gets worse, there is no asset test!!! In other words 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:

1. Lower the income levels to make it more difficult to qualify
2. Implement and asset test like Medicaid does to qualify for nursinig home payments

If this does not happen, the 210,000 member projection for next year will be surpassed and the cost will exceed well over 2 billion per year.