Predicted Price Increase for Kids' Insurance

Under a new proposal by the Department of Health and Human Services, premiums for Healthy Kids Silver would go up five dollars and copays would increase for hearing and vision exams and emergency room visits.

Currently in the program, families pay premiums on a sliding scale depending on their income.

They pay from twenty five to forty five dollars per month per child.

They also have a ten dollar copay for most doctors’ visits.

Healthy Kids Corporation CEO Tricia Brooks says the additional copays on top of a five dollar premium increase will put too much strain on families’ ability to pay.

Brooks: We do need to ask families to pick up some share of the cost. The New Hampshire Healthy Kids Board has recommended that we limit that to a five dollar per member per month premium increase.

And Brooks predicts the increase in copays will inhibit enrollment, leaving kids without insurance.

Brooks: And we think that we don’t have to go that far. That the budget is sufficient to limit it to the five dollar premium increase.

HHS Commissioner John Stephen says the Department’s proposal is actually a recommendation from the Healthy Kids Corporation.

In a June email to the Department, Healthy Kids outlined three options, A, B, and C.

Stephen: And basically what we followed was option B. We talked about it in house and we decided that that was the best option that we thought that we could bring forward.

Option B costs the state about one dollar twenty five cents less each month per child.

Stephen says the department’s preference is not the final word.

The proposal will have to pass through the legislative rules committee in September.

And before that a legislative oversight committee will provide recommendations on how the proposal might change.

Stephen: This department wants to make sure that any recommendation is consistent with legislative intent and involves members of the legislature. So we would be open to any issue that fell within those recommendations. But I also want to make sure that the oversight committee is involved in this process.

Republican Representative David Kidder sits on the oversight committee.

He says the state has an obligation to support Healthy Kids.

Kidder: As much as I know about it at this point I think that what Healthy Kids is doing is the right thing. It’s an effective, meaningful program and we just need to make sure we keep it that way.

Kidder isn’t sure how his colleagues on the oversight committee will lean in the debate.

Tricia Brooks from Health Kids says that based on the track record of the legislature, she’s confident the oversight committee will support her recommendations.

SOQ