Gov. Rick Perry told federal officials Friday that Texas would not participate in health insurance pools for high risk individuals that are being set up under the new national health care law.
Perry, citing some of the same reasons he used to pull out of the Race to the Top education funding grant program in January, said there are not enough health care rules to guide the states. He also said he believes the $5 billion Congress set aside to set up pools in all 50 states for four years is inadequate.
“Most experts believe this amount to be insufficient. In the coming years, state officials could be forced to reduce health coverage, raise premiums or ask state taxpayers to pay for these high-risk pools once federal funds run dry,” Perry said in his letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
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Under the new federal law, if states opt out of running a pool, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services would be allowed to create its own risk pools in those states or contract with an outside party. The pools would be in place until 2014, when health insurance companies no longer would be allowed to deny coverage to people in poor health.
The department announced Friday that 27 states had opted to set up pools to cover uninsured people with medical problems, according to the Associated Press. The department said 15 states had decided not to participate. Texas was not included in that list. Friday was the deadline for states to agree to participate or opt out.
Most of the states rejecting the insurance pools are run by Republican governors.
So they’d rather leave it up to the feds than do it themselves. Kind of an odd message for that crowd to be sending, but one shouldn’t expect consistency. The Trib and Postcards have more.