[Nfbmo] FW: Blind Pension Health Care

[Gary Wunder]

From: Gene Coulter [mailto:escoulter at centurytel.net] 
Sent: Saturday, March 23, 2013 12:36 AM
To: Gary Wunder
Cc: sbwright95 at att.net
Subject: Blind Pension Health Care

 

(Please distribute to leaders list)

Dear Friends,

Thursday evening the Governmental Affairs committee met by conference call. As a result of that the Chair, Shelia Wright, asked  some of us to write the leaders to inform you of what is going on and to ask for your input. We again have to deal with changes to the medical coverage on the Blind Pension program. This year’s proposed changes are different than we faced last year. Some people would continue on as before (but not very many); a second group would have to pay premiums of about $14 to $120; and a third group would no longer get medical coverage at all. If your income is over 150% of the Federal Poverty level but not more  than 300% of the Federal Poverty level  you would be required to pay a premium and over 300% you would no longer have state medical coverage and would depending on your circumstances either enroll  in whatever parts of Medicare you don’t have if eligible, get private insurance or  enroll in a health insurance pool. 

Here are the figures for a single person (income figures are approxmate but within a dollar or two and change annually)

income of $1436 or less no premium

income from $1436.01 to  $2872.00 pays premiums

and income of $2872.01 or more not eligible.

For a couple

income of $1938.00 no premium

$1938.01 to $3877.00 pays premiums

$3877.01 and up not eligible for medical coverage.

As I understand it the blind pension is countable income for this purpose and there are no exclusions from income.

The bills we are concerned about are HB11 which sets the amounts of the premium (I’ve pasted the pertnant section at the end of this message) and HB700 which authorizes the change. The important bill is HB700 as without the authorization it gives  the premium structure  in HB11 cannot take effect.

We realize that most no one wishes this legislation to pass but there are a lot of things working against us. The primary thing is that the provisions requiring are premium payment and determining eligibility are equivilant to the most liberal provisions for any group eligible for medicaid in the state. Therefore, a legislators arguement is why should blind persons have it better than anyone else as we are still giving them the best treatment of any group? So, while there is no way we can or would support this  change as an organization we need some compelling argument to testify against it. That is where each of you and your memberships come in. We need  folks to put their  collective heads together and  study this thoroughly and come up with compelling arguements to defeat this. Time is of the essence as hearings begin this week. Here are the only three things the committee came up that I recall and I am not sure if they are compelling.

1. Persons who  have Blind pension health coverage in many cases didn’t take out  Part B of Medicare as it has a monthly premium because they had  BP medical coverage. If they were to have to enroll now they could face a penalty for late enrollment of up to 10% for each year they were eligible and failed to enroll which could run into hundreds of dollars a month.

2. Loosing coverage now after the state provided it for 46 years just isn’t right. People who  have been on the coverage  for decades have budgetted  their  in many sparse incomes  carefully and having to pay either  a Medicaid, Medicare, or private premium could break them.

3. The actual cost to the state might be more than is saved as some folks may have to go into nursing homes or use the E R as their primary health care.

So, please provide examples and other problems you see with the bill because as of right now the committee has some discomfort with a full out assault on the bill.

My personal feelings are that they should scrap the bill and just goahead and expand Medcaid up to the full amount authorzed by the Federal government, but that is just one man’s opinion

Please write quickly,

Gene

 

Here is the section of the authorzation bill providing for premium payments

HB11

 

 

Section 11.600. To the Department of Social Services  

2 

For the MO HealthNet Division  

3 

For the purpose of funding healthcare benefits for non-Medicaid eligible  

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blind individuals who receive the Missouri Blind Pension cash  

5 

grant, provided that individuals under this section shall pay the  

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following premiums to be eligible to receive such services: zero  

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percent on the amount of a family’s income which is less that 150  

8 

percent of the federal poverty level; four percent on the amount of  

9 

a family’s income which is less than 185 percent on the amount of  

10 

the federal poverty level but greater than 150 percent of the federal  

11 

poverty level; eight percent of the amount on a family’s income  

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which is less than 225 percent of the federal poverty level but  

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greater than 185 percent of the federal poverty level: fourteen  

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percent on the amount of a family’s income which is less than 300  

15 

percent of the federal poverty level but greater than 225 percent of  

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the federal poverty level not to exceed five percent of total income.  

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Families with an annual income of more than 300 percent of the  

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federal poverty level are ineligible for this program  

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>From General Revenue Fund. ......................................... $21,489,941  

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>From Blind Pension Premium Fund. ................................... 3,632,576  

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Total. ............................................................ $25,122,517