By JAKE HARPER, for Side Effects Media
Indiana expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act in 2015, adding conditions designed to appeal to the state’s conservative leadership. The federal government approved the experiment, called the Healthy Indiana Plan, or HIP 2.0, which is now up for a three-year renewal.
But a close reading of the state’s renewal application shows that misleading and inaccurate information is being used to justify extending HIP 2.0.
This is important because the initial application and expansion happened on the watch of then-governor and now Vice President Mike Pence. And Seema Verma, who is President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, helped design it. (Among other functions, CMS oversees all Medicaid programs.) So, states are watching to see if the approval of Indiana’s application is a bellwether for Medicaid’s future.
To get the program extended again, the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration has to prove to CMS that the experiment is working and that low-income people in the state are indeed getting access to care and using health care efficiently.
The key part of Indiana’s experiment requires low-income participants to make monthly payments. Advocates say this promotes recipients’ taking personal responsibility for their health care. But some health policy experts say the information provided by the state shows that the provision isn’t working as well as it should. Some examples:
The Claim: Most members are making regular payments to maintain coverage.
The Fact: A lot of people are missing the first payment.
The state’s application says that “over 92 percent of members continue to contribute [to their POWER accounts] throughout their enrollment.”
This claim is missing context. Here’s a primer on how HIP 2.0 works: Members can get HIP 2.0’s more complete coverage, the HIP Plus plan, by making monthly payments into a “Personal Wellness and Responsibility Account,” or POWER account.
If they don’t make the payments, there are penalties. If a recipient makes less than the federal poverty level — about $12,000 a year — they’re bumped to HIP Basic, a lower-value plan that requires copays and doesn’t include vision or dental insurance.
If a recipient is above the poverty line and misses a payment, they become locked out of coverage completely for six months.
The state’s claim that 92 percent of members make consistent payments is based on data in a report by the Lewin Group, a health policy research firm in Virginia that evaluated HIP 2.0’s first year.
But the Lewin report also says that when people sign up for HIP 2.0 they can be declared “conditionally enrolled,” which means they’re eligible but have not yet made their first payment.
According to the Lewin report, in HIP 2.0’s first year, about a third of people who were conditionally enrolled never fully joined.
“I don’t see those numbers being captured,” said Dr. David Machledt, senior policy analyst with the National Health Law Program, which advocates for low-income individuals. Machledt said the state should recalculate the figure to include those people, because it’s potentially an indicator that people are confused about how the program works or that they can’t afford the payments.
He added that the figure cited is based on the first year of HIP 2.0, and that the rate of losing coverage for missing payments has increased substantially since then.
This story is part of a partnership that includes WFYI, Side Effects Public Media, NPR and Kaiser Health News.
