Gov. Bill Haslam (R-TN)
It looks like Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has gotten tired of
all those maps showing Tennessee with high levels of uninsured people while neighboring Kentucky and Arkansas have dramatically reduced their uninsured rates. Haslam is the latest Republican governor to propose a
privatized Medicaid expansion:
Tennesseans 21 to 64 years old will be offered a choice of the Healthy Incentives Plan or the Volunteer Plan.
The Volunteer Plan would provide a health insurance voucher to participants that would be used to participate in their employer's health insurance plan. The voucher, valued at slightly less than the average TennCare per-enrollee cost, can be used to pay for premiums and other out-of-pocket expenses associated with participation in an individual's employer sponsored private market plan.
Participants in the Healthy Incentives Plan may choose to receive coverage through a redesigned component of the TennCare program, which would introduce Healthy Incentives for Tennesseans (HIT) accounts, modeled after Health Reimbursement Accounts (HRAs), which can be used to pay for a portion of required member cost-sharing.
The question is whether Haslam's plan will pass muster with both his state's Republican legislature and the Obama administration, which
previously rejected a different Haslam plan for privatized Medicaid expansion in Tennessee. If this works, many of the
more than 160,000 Tennesseans without health insurance could finally get care.
But betting on a Republican legislature to say yes to health care for more people is always risky.