Health insurance rule taken out of bill
04 04 08 - 13:38
State lawmakers are backing away from requiring that Iowa parents must enroll their children for health insurance, but still would like to set a goal that all children have insurance by 2011.
The current version of health care legislation before the Iowa Legislature does set aside money to cover more children: about $25 million over three years.
Lawmakers would like to spend that money to increase state subsidies for coverage of children of moderate-income families under the Hawk-I and Medicaid programs.
The money would be enough to provide health insurance for about 39,000 of the 53,000 Iowa children who currently aren't insured, said Sen. Jack Hatch, a Democrat from Des Moines.
"That is a major step forward," Hatch said Thursday. "This is the biggest investment of new money the Legislature will make this year."
Lawmakers also would like to create a new, unsubsidized health insurance program for children whose parents make more than about $60,000 annually for a family of four but may not have access to insurance through their jobs.
Uninsured adults also would be able to buy such coverage, which lawmakers said would be cheaper than private insurance, for themselves.
Thursday, the Iowa Senate started debate on the latest bill, an amended version of House File 2539, but Republican lawmakers asked to postpone until Monday to allow more time to understand the amendments.
A Senate committee beefed up the House version last week, adding the requirement that all Iowa children have health insurance by 2011. But a proposed amendment would strip it out again.
Hatch has repeatedly said the requirement was a key part of the proposal, but on Thursday he said he still supports the bill.
Another piece of the bill calls for more planning. It would ask an advisory group to come up with a plan by Dec. 15 to provide coverage for uninsured children.
The advisory group, appointed by the Iowa Comprehensive Health Insurance Association, would include former Govs. Terry Branstad, a Republican, and Tom Vilsack, a Democrat.
The advisory group would identify a method to get children enrolled. That could again be the mandate for parents, or it could be an employer mandate or some other kind of automatic enrollment, said Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs.
Lawmakers will then approve the advisory group's plan or modify it, Hatch said.
The advisory group will add to what has already been a significant amount of study on the issue. Over the last nine months of meetings, about 30 lawmakers and representatives of special-interest groups had dozens of meetings to go over the intricacies of health care policy and to come up with initiatives, Democratic lawmakers said.
The Iowa House passed its version of the bill 97-0 last month, saying it aimed to cover all Iowa children. Child-welfare advocates complained that the House version had few specifics about how the goal would be achieved.
Reporter Jennifer Janeczko Jacobs can be reached at (515) 284-8001 or jejacobs@dmreg.com