Medicaid

Indiana is cutting off enrollment in the Healthy Indiana Plan after the program reached this year’s funding limit.

When the federal government reauthorized HIP, the health insurance program for low-income Hoosiers, last year, it required Indiana to lower the income eligibility ceiling from 200-percent of poverty – about $47,000 a year for a family of four – to 100-percent – roughly $23,000 dollars a year. 

The state pays for the program through the tobacco tax, limiting its size to a monthly average of 45,000 people. 

The Pence Administration is seeking a waiver to replace Indiana’s Medicaid program with a new version of the Healthy Indiana Plan. 

Speaking at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis Thursday, Governor Pence unveiled a new state-sponsored health care plan that would cover Hoosiers who earn up to 138-percent of the federal poverty limit.

Like the original Healthy Indiana Plan, HIP 2.0 asks individuals to pay into a health savings account. Those who do will be eligible for a new top tier plan called HIP PLUS.

Purdue President Mitch Daniels says for the United States to prosper, spending on entitlements must be reined in soon. He was one of several people who spoke at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation event Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

The forum looked at the costs and impacts of entitlement programs on future generations, and possible reforms and solutions available. 

Daniels says government spending on Social Security and Medicare leaves less money for such things as university research, which in turn hurts the national economy.

More than 36,000 low-income Hoosiers with health insurance through the Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP) will get to keep their coverage for another year.  Indiana reached an agreement with the federal government for an extension of the state’s health insurance program through 2014.

Under HIP’s one year extension, the program will undergo some changes.  Currently, a family of four earning about $47,000 annually, which is 200% of the federal poverty level, is eligible for the program; that income threshold will be lowered to 100%, roughly $23,000 a year for that family of four.