Missouri receives $21M grant to set up insurance exchange

KANSAS CITY, MO (KCUR) - Missouri has received a $21 million federal grant to build an online health insurance exchange, or marketplace.

Travis Ford with the Missouri Department of Insurance says if set up correctly, an exchange would enable Missourians to view multiple insurance plans online at once, to more easily compare policies and prices.

Under the federal health law, states can either develop their own exchanges, or opt out and have the federal government step in and create one instead. Ford says the grant allows Missouri to get a head start on the process.

"If Missouri’s leaders elect to build, create and operate a state-run online market place like this, then we need to be ready," Ford says. "This grant money allows us to do the work and put the IT structure in place necessary for us to be ready."

The federal health law requires the exchanges to be up and running by 2014.

The Missouri house unanimously passed exchange legislation last session, but it never made it to a vote in the Senate.

The Senate’s insurance committee, meanwhile, is preparing to hold hearings across the state this month and next on whether and how to set one up.

Elana Gordon, KCUR

Read More

Missouri again cuts premiums for pre-existing condition program

KANSAS CITY, MO (KCUR) - A state health insurance option for people with pre-existing health conditions has once again gotten cheaper. In what state insurance officials are calling a significant reduction, Missouri's high risk insurance pool is cutting premiums by nearly 25 percent.

The federally funded program is designed for people with chronic diseases who've either been flat-out denied health coverage or charged an extremely high rate.

So far, about 550 people have enrolled in the program, but it has the capacity to ensure up to 2500.

Travis Ford, with the Missouri Department of Insurance, says cost may be a factor in whether people sign up.

"This is not free insurance, it's not cheap insurance, it's for people who can pay a full premium," says Ford. "But at least it's the right to buy insurance."

Ford says the program's premiums, or what people pay for a policy on a monthly basis, are based on a combination of federal rules and private health insurance trends in the state. He says determining these premium rates and ensuring they're as affordable as possible is an ongoing and challenging process.

"That means continual number crunching and analysis," says Ford. "And that's difficult in Missouri because health insurance rates are not regulated. And so health insurance companies are not required to file rates with the state."

Ford says in an effort to make coverage more accessible, the high risk program recently got federal approval to cut premiums by 23 percent. That's on top of a 25 percent rate reduction in February.

Ford says the latest cut could save a person an estimated $500 to $2000 a year, depending on one's age and deductible.

To be eligible for the program, a person must be without insurance for at least six months and have a pre-existing health condition.

The program was created under the federal health law last year, and is slated to phase out once insurance companies can no longer deny people coverage in 2014.

Elana Gordon, KCUR
Photo: Carolen Collins looks over the application to Missouri's new high risk insurance pool. Denied coverage in the private market, she recently enrolled in the program.

Read More

New Mo. Senate committee to look at legality of health exchanges

Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Rob Mayer has created a Senate Interim Committee on Health Insurance Exchanges.

At question is the legality of Missouri creating its own health insurance exchange in order to meet federal health overhaul law requirements.

Missouri voters passed Proposition C last August, which blocked the government from requiring individuals to purchase health care.

Mayer, a Republican from Dexter, says that the committee is a response to concerns about federal law.

“I, along with many other state Senators, have some concerns that complying with the federal law and creating a health insurance exchange, could be and would be in violation of state law,” Mayer said.

The interim committee consists of four Republicans and two Democrats. Mayer says that they will begin work within two or three weeks.

Jacob McCleland, KRCU

Read More