The April 25th Covering Kids and Families was well-attended by almost 200 people.  Department of Social Services (DSS) Commissioner Michael Starkowski announced that DSS is working on a plan to gradually move HUSKY members currently enrolled in Anthem (Blue Care Family Plan) and Traditional Medicaid (fee-for-service) into new health plans beginning July 1.  These health plans are expected to contract with DSS for the HUSKY program and the new Charter Oak Health Plan, which will offer coverage to uninsured adults not eligible for HUSKY or SAGA..  Three health plans submitted bids for the combined contracts:  Aetna (Schaller Anderson), United Health (Americhoice), and a current HUSKY contractor - Community Health Network of CT (CHNCT). 

For more detailed information about the meeting, see the "Review of HUSKY Program Changes" page on the CT Voices Web site.  There you can find a summary of the April meeting, a letter from Commissioner Starkowski explaining the transition plan, copies of presentations from the meeting, client notices, and other materials.

Here are some brief highlights from presentations at last week's meeting:

• Wellcare (Preferred One) and Health Net no longer participate in the HUSKY program as of March 31, 2008.
• HUSKY A Families now receive health care through Community Health Network of CT (CHNCT), Anthem (Blue Care Family Plan), or Traditional Medicaid (fee-for-service).   HUSKY B children now receive health care through CHNCT or Anthem (Blue Care Family Plan).  Anthem (BCFP) serves more than 50% of the HUSKY enrollees (over 180,000)
• Over 44,000 HUSKY members are enrolled in traditional Medicaid (TM)
• HUSKY families and children can still change health plans or move from traditional Medicaid to a health plan at any time.
• Pharmacy benefits are now administered by DSS, effective February 1, 2008.  Dental benefits will be administered by DSS through one administrative services organization, on or after July 1, 2008.
• Dental fee increases became effective April 1, 2008. Pediatric dental rates increased significantly.
• HUSKY A applications are being processed by the three DSS Regional Processing Units.
• DSS Medicaid (HUSKY A) citizenship documentation regulations are expected to be in effect by June.  Covering Kids will post the DSS notices and regulations about the US citizenship documentation requirements on our Web site once this information is finalized by DSS.  Once published, the public will have thirty days to submit comments to DSS in support or opposition to the regulations.  These state regulations have been drafted to conform to a 2005 federal law.  DSS will not be cutting off HUSKY A benefits to any family for lack of documentation unless DSS has contacted families and provided them with an opportunity to obtain the documentation.
• DSS continues to develop its automatic newborn enrollment procedures in conjunction with state birthing hospitals.  Because of legislation passed last year, HUSKY B premiums are waived for the first four months of eligibility for newborns.  ACS (the HUSKY enrollment broker) is already processing HUSKY B premium waivers for any uninsured newborn who is eligible for HUSKY B when a premium would otherwise be required.

The Covering Kids initiative would like to thank the Connecticut Health Foundation for its continued support of the Coalition, as well as the Department of Social Services, which underwrote the cost of the new meeting space.

Read more...

The state legislative session is scheduled to end next Wednesday, May 7.  Legislative leaders and the Governor are attempting to hammer out a budget agreement that takes into account new and dismal revenue projections.  Since February, when the Governor gave her budget address the revenue projects have gone from a surplus of about $273 million to a $67 million deficit.  The projections have changed day to day over the last two weeks.   

Although the Appropriations Committee did add back cuts that the Governor had proposed which would have eliminated funding for medical language interpretation ($4.7 million) and narrowed the definition of "medically necessary" services in Medicaid ($4.5 million), it is not clear whether either or both of these restorations will remain in the final budget.

As we reported in our last e-mail newsletter, "continuous eligibility" (CE) for children in HUSKY, which was eliminated in 2003 at a time of budget cutting, was not restored in the Appropriations Committee budget proposal.  CE allows children to remain enrolled in HUSKY for one year, regardless of fluctuation in family income.  Also, see a recent presentation from CT Voices for Children (PDF) on state and federal budget developments.

Federal funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) which helps to fund HUSKY B in Connecticut, was extended by Congress and the President through March 30, 2009.  While the extension keeps in place current funding for HUSKY B, our HUSKY B program is threatened by a "directive" sent by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to state officials last year.  The new requirements made by this letter would likely lead to thousands of children on HUSKY B losing coverage.  The directive begins to affect Connecticut in August 2008, when Connecticut will have to demonstrate that it is covering 95% of children below 200% of the federal poverty level and that the state has a policy that requires a child to be uninsured for a full year prior to becoming eligible for HUSKY B. 

In addition, CMS has also issued a series of Medicaid regulations that restrict  payments for rehabilitative services, targeted case management, school administration and outreach, provider taxes, and graduate medical education.  If implemented, the regulations would cost Connecticut over $417 million, according to DSS officials.  The US House of Representatives passed legislation by a 349 to 62 vote that would stop these regulations until August 2009.  Our entire House delegation voted in favor of this moratorium.  The Senate is considering legislation that would both enact the moratorium on some of these regulations and eliminate the directive (S. 2819).  There are 34 sponsors of this bill, including Senators Dodd and Lieberman.

The best vehicles for stopping the Medicaid regulations are the Supplemental Appropriations bills that are currently being considered.  (Unfortunately, a provision eliminating the SCHIP directive is not likely to be in these bills.)  Please contact your federal lawmakers and thank them for their support for maintaining federal financial support for our HUSKY program and urge them to do everything they can to overturn the Bush Administration's harmful new Medicaid and SCHIP rules.  Also, please thank Governor Rell for her continued support for full federal funding for our HUSKY program and ask her to speak out in support of efforts to overturn the new rules.

Phone numbers for Congress:

• Congressman John Larson (202) 225-1031
• Congressman Joe Courtney (202) 225-2076
• Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (202) 225-3661
• Congressman Christopher Shays (202) 225-5541
• Congressman Chris Murphy (202) 225-4476
• Senator Dodd:  (202) 224-2823
• Senator Lieberman: (202) 224-4041

Phone number for Governor Rell: (800) 406-1527

For more information on the proposed Medicaid regulations and SCHIP directive, see the CT Voices brief on the topic.

Read more...