Cuts to the rolls of the state's Basic Health Plan won't be as bad as feared: Instead of using a lottery or tightening eligibility -- two ideas that state officials had considered for dropping 40,000 of the plan's 100,000 members -- the program will raise premiums and deductibles to help backfill a $238 million budget cut, Health Care Authority administrator Steve Hill said June 8.
For the lowest-income enrollees of Basic Health, a state-subsidized plan for the working poor, premiums will double from $17 to $34 a month starting Jan. 1, with the average premium -- today at $36 -- jumping to $61.60 a month. The program will also raise its deductible next year from $150 to $250 a year.
The ideal caseload is somewhere between 60,000 and 70,000 enrollees, Hill said. To get there, he said, Basic Health will have to cut at least 23,000 people this year. Among them, more than 5,000 people on both Medicaid and Basic Health will soon get a letter telling them they will be cut from Basic Health Aug. 1. The program is also increasing the number of people it asks to prove their income eligibility each month, which Hill said should take another 8,600 off the rolls.
Another 7,000 to 17,000 people are expected to leave the program on their own because of the premium increases, but the decision, Hill said, will be theirs. "No one who qualifies for the program," he said, "will be arbitrarily removed."