An increased demand for health insurance and a large waiting list for the BadgerCare Core Plus Plan has prompted the Wisconsin Department of Health Services to propose a ""bare bones"" plan for poor, childless adults.
The approximate 7,000-person waiting list was created last month after enrollment was capped for BadgerCare Core Plus.
According to state Rep. Jon Richards, D-Milwaukee, chairman of the Assembly Health Committee, the state stopped adding people to the program because demand exceeded federal funding.
""I applaud the efforts of Jason Helgerson and the Department of Health Services to come up with a way to make basic health insurance available to people who don't have a very high income and might have very great need for health insurance,"" he said.
Helgerson, director of Wisconsin's Medicaid programs, updated lawmakers on the status of the new program at a joint hearing before the Senate and Assembly health committees Tuesday.
According to Stephanie Smiley, spokesperson for DHS, there is no money in the budget for the new program.
""The options would have to be self-funded,"" she said. ""That would mean the program is funded through the premiums and co-pays that individuals on the program would need to pay out of pocket.""
Those who are eligible for the new program would have various options, including a preventive and primary care plan with no hospitalization coverage and a ""catastrophic-type coverage plan.""
""We still haven't nailed those down in terms of what the plan could provide,"" Smiley said. ""But definitely all of the options are going to be significantly less coverage than what people would be able to get on the Core Plan.""
State Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, told the La Crosse Tribune she didn't think Helgerson's options were desirable or sustainable.
Richards disagrees.
""I think it is viable,"" he said. Richards added that he expects those on the waiting list to take advantage of the options.
Smiley expects the plan to pass the legislature and go into effect by March 2010.
