The future of state-run health care received a more defined timeline that makes the public option available in 2014.
The 11-member SustiNet board of directors, co-chaired by Nancy Wyman, the state comptroller and future lieutenant-governor, and Kevin Lembo, the State Health care Advocate, have recently said there may be more time involved in the rollout process. The board is required to advise the legislature on how Connecticut”™s health care system should implement the federal government”™s law requiring reform, with the SustiNet health plan the vehicle for that reform.
“We are charged with a huge task; to take a look at the $7 billion we are spending in health care and to figure out how to do that smarter,” said Lembo, who will take over Wyman”™s job as comptroller in January when she is sworn in as lieutenant governor.
Currently, Connecticut spends $7 billion to provide health care for state workers, retirees, prisoners and some 400,000 Medicaid recipients, many of whom are children.
The board”™s recently released updates show metrics of how the SustiNet plan would result in a net savings for the state as it leverages new resources made available by the federal government.
The timeline showed a 2011 combining of all participants of Medicaid; HUSKY, which is coverage for uninsured children and youths; SAGA, which provides cash to individuals who are unable to work for medical reasons and to families that do not meet the requirements of the Temporary Family Assistance program; as well as state employees and retirees into a single group.
Also featured in the timeline report was a 2012 date attached to the expansion of eligibility for HUSKY and opening of SustiNet coverage to small businesses, nonprofits and municipalities.
Continuing to be the time period of focus, the new report reinforced 2014 as the year in which the federally required health care exchange will be open, with SustiNet as a coverage option available both inside and outside of the exchange. Â Insurance coverage in the exchanges will be subsidized by the federal government.
Though the ultimate availability date remained the same, the timeline updates projected a bit of a deceleration in the rate that pieces of the state-run services would fall into place; it is unlikely that individuals will be able to buy in to the plan before 2014.
“We might have to do SustiNet a little slower than we”™d hoped,” said Wyman. Though she said once in place the state should be able to start saving money quickly, by expanding its buying power through the pooling of the customer base and encouraging better management of the $7 billion in health care the state”™s already paying for. She said that if the slowly improving fiscal situation makes it possible, the rollout schedule could see acceleration.
