News Release
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, June 18, 2004 |
Contact: CMS Public Affairs
(202) 690-6145 |
HHS Awards Grants to West Virginia, Utah to Insure Residents with Costly Medical Conditions
Support for State High-Risk Pools Will Help Provide Affordable Insurance
HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today announced grants to West Virginia and Utah to support efforts to provide health insurance to residents who have difficulty getting conventional health coverage because they are too sick. The grants will be used by the state to support high-risk pools, which will offer health coverage to individuals with serious medical conditions that lead to predictably high costs.
"These grants will help West Virginia and Utah provide access to health care through the high-risk pool they are developing for the uninsured," Secretary Thompson said. "Individuals who benefit from these pools usually have a history of health problems that make it extremely difficult to find affordable health coverage in the individual market."
West Virginia will receive $500,000 and hopes to enroll residents in its new high-risk pool beginning January 1, 2005. Utah will receive $52,618, which will be used by the state to offset some of the cost of bringing their program into compliance with federal rules for high-risk pools. The state changed the eligibility criteria for its high-risk pool to make signing up easier for people who have lost their group health coverage and exhausted other forms of coverage.
To date, HHS has awarded $33.5 million to 22 states through two grant programs to support high-risk pools. Enrollment in these pools is growing, with more than 172,000 individuals enrolled in state pools across the country. High-risk pools also help reduce the premium costs for others who buy insurance, by subsidizing the higher insurance costs of people with serious chronic conditions.
The grants were authorized in the Trade Adjustment Assistance Reform Act of 2002. To be eligible for a start-up grant, a state must not have had an existing qualified high-risk pool as of August 6, 2002, and must intend to create a "qualified" high-risk pool. HHS' Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) administers the program.
Today's awards are part of the Bush Administration's broad strategy for expanding access to affordable health care for the more than 40 million Americans without health insurance.
"Helping the uninsured has been a high priority of the Bush Administration," said Mark B. McClellan, M.D., Ph.D., administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the agency that oversees the grant program. "These grants for high-risk pools will help people who otherwise might not be able to afford high medical bills get the care they need. The grants will make health insurance more affordable for others because they don't have to cover the insurance costs of those with serious chronic illnesses."
More information about risk pools is available at www.cms.hhs.gov/riskpool.
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Note: All HHS press releases, fact sheets and other press materials are available at http://www.hhs.gov/news.
Last Revised: June 18, 2004
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