Earlier this year, the AdultBasic health insurance program, in Pennsylvania, ended. This left 40,000 low-income people without insurance. Soon, a new affordable health insurance program called PA Fair Care will be available.
In February of 2011, the AdultBasic program ended. This was an affordable health insurance program for adults who did not have, and could not afford, any other type of health insurance, (including Medicare or Medicaid). In order to qualify, a person had to be between the ages of 19 and 65. There were a total of about 40,000 people that were using this health insurance program when it ended.
The program offered many types of health care. This included: preventative care, physician services, diagnosis and treatment of illness and injury, in-patient hospitalization, out-patient hospitalization, and emergency accident and medical care for people who could not find affordable health insurance.
Part of the reason why the AdultBasic program in Pennsylvania ended was because of funding. The funding allocated for that program expired a year before the program ended. The state of Pennsylvania had a $4 billion budget deficit at that time.
Starting on September 1, 2011, there will be a new high-risk health insurance program in Pennsylvania. It is called PA Fair Care. Like the AdultBasic program, PA Fair Care is designed for people who have chronic health conditions and who cannot afford to purchase private health insurance coverage.
It is going to cost people who qualify for the program about $300 a month. The AdultBasic program only cost about $36 a month. There is concern that the people who were able to afford AdultBasic, and who lack health insurance, won’t be able to afford the higher price for the new insurance. However, $300 is much less than what most private insurance companies will charge for people who have pre-existing conditions.
Right now, there are around 3,600 people who have enrolled in the PA Fair Care program. At this time, there is no plan to cap enrollment, and their isn’t an expectation that there will be a need for a wait list.
In order to qualify for PA Fair Care, a person must have gone completely and entirely without health insurance for at least six months. People have been pointing out that this could be really dangerous for people who have serious, chronic, health issues. It is entirely possible that something could happen to this group of people that would require immediate medical attention during the timespan that they have no health insurance coverage.
On the other hand, people who have gone completely without insurance since the AdultBasic ended, and who have been unable to get a new form of health insurance, have one advantage going for them. September 1, 2011, is the six month anniversary of the end of AdultBasic. They won’t have to wait much longer before they can have health insurance coverage again.
Image by BrianSwan on Flickr