A special session of the Tennessee Legislature to discuss Insure Tennessee began on Monday. As the debate continues, here are some key takeaways about the plan and the ongoing conversations:
1. Last month, the Tennessee attorney general and the head of the federal health department agreed that Tennessee may opt out of the plan in the future without facing a penalty.
2. A lot of the debate focuses on the money, according to a report from The Leaf-Chronicle. Insure Tennessee, a two-year pilot program, would provide federally subsidized healthcare to an estimated 280,000 residents between the ages of 19 and 64 who are not otherwise eligible for Medicaid and have family incomes at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty level. It would be fully funded with federal dollars through Dec. 31, 2016, and then, beginning Jan. 1, 2017, when the federal match rate declines, with federal dollars as well as revenues from a state assessment on hospitals.
3. Insure Tennessee will cost more than $15 million each year to administer, according to a report by The Tennessean. The information comes from Jeff Spalding, executive director of the Tennessee Fiscal Review Committee.
4. Tennessee House Speaker Beth Harwell (R-Nashville) has offered to have her committee chairmen draw up alternate suggestions if Insure Tennessee “appear(s) to be headed for defeat,”according to a Chattanooga Times Free Press report.
5. Insure Tennessee requires co-payments, incentives for practicing a healthy lifestyle and “revisions to the way medical procedures are reimbursed to hospitals,” according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press report.
6. Insure Tennessee “faces an up-or-down vote without a chance for lawmakers to make adjustments to make them more comfortable with the deal Haslam negotiated with federal government,” the Chattanooga Times Free Press report reads.
7. “The majority of Tennesseans support Insure Tennessee, both Republicans and Democrats, and the governor believes the committees in the Senate and House are doing exactly what they should do,” said David Smith,a spokesman for Gov. Haslam, according to a report by The Tennessean. They are taking the proposal seriously, having productive discussions and are asking questions to better understand it.”
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