Pennsylvania’s Low-Income and Jobless Lose AdultBasic Health Insurance Plan
An important insurance plan expired in Pennsylvania at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday after running out of funding. The expiration of the plan, known as AdultBasic, has left many low-income and jobless people without affordable coverage options.
AdultBasic Was Forced to Expire
AdultBasic was a program established in 2001 by former Republican Governor Tom Ridge as a way to provide Pennsylvania residents with low-cost health insurance (premiums were as low as $36 a month) if they earned too much to qualify for Medicaid, were unemployed or had a job where health insurance wasn’t offered.
The program covered 42,000 Pennsylvanians thanks to funding from four nonprofit Blue Cross/Blue Shield companies in the state that provided $1 billion to keep it running, along with funding from a 2011 settlement with tobacco firms.
However, with the money from the settlement dwindling, the four Blue companies ending their participation in the program at the end of 2010 and health care expense increases, the program was forced to end.
Protesters Fight to Bring the Program Back
After AdultBasic members received notification two weeks ago that the program ran out of funds and would end, protesters began to organize.
Two protests occurred on Tuesday, one in Market Square in Pittsburgh and the other outside of Governor Tom Corbett’s residence in Harrisburg. Protesters plan to keep the issue alive with continued rallies until they feel it is properly addressed.
Advocates of the program are also asking the Blue companies to begin funding again, but since the companies offer their own program in which AdultBasic members can enroll, they don’t seem interested. The problem with the program, however, is that monthly premiums fall into the $160 range–much higher than AdultBasic and, for some, unaffordable.
Senate Democrats are making their own attempts to save the program by asking that it be extended through June 30th, when the current fiscal year ends. But while Gov. Corbett said he will propose a spending plan for the fiscal year 2011-12 next Tuesday, no one knows whether the AdultBasic program will be addressed in the plan.
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