BlueService is the difference that makes the difference.

The following column was published in The Journal Record April 23, 2008.

 

From our cities and evolving industries to our people, history and natural resources, Oklahoma has many things of which to be proud. In recent years, however, our state’s high rate of uninsured citizens (currently just over 18 percent) hasn’t been one of them.

 

But I’m an optimist at heart. That’s why I’m thrilled that in typical Oklahoma fashion, our state’s officials and business leaders have responded by pioneering a truly innovative public-private solution that is reducing the state’s number of uninsured.

 

Next week (April 27-May 3) is National Cover the Uninsured Week, and so it’s fitting that this effort is now receiving national attention as a model program.

 

Insure Oklahoma is a health insurance premium assistance program that helps state small businesses offer affordable health coverage to their employees. The program is funded by a tobacco products tax passed by voters in 2004 combined with federal matching funds, paying up to 60 percent of eligible workers’ health insurance premiums. Under current eligibility rules, employees of businesses with 50 or fewer employees and their spouses can participate. Insure Oklahoma also offers an affordable individual plan to workers without employer-sponsored coverage. To be eligible for either plan, enrollees’ household income currently cannot exceed 200 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL).

 

While Insure Oklahoma is designed to assist smaller businesses and their employees, larger businesses and indeed everyone benefit when more people have health coverage. The problem of the uninsured impacts all of us in the form of rising health care costs.

 

Blue Cross and Blue Shield has extolled Insure Oklahoma on these pages before, and we’re continuing to do so for two primary reasons: The program works and more people need to know about it.

 

Insure Oklahoma has also recently achieved new successes. Enrollment has more than doubled in the past six months, and more than 9,500 enrollees and nearly 2,300 small businesses now participate. And with a possible expansion of program eligibility on the horizon, the potential for much greater growth soon could be realized.

About a year ago a new state law set the stage to allow businesses with up to 250 employees and individuals with household incomes of up to 250 percent of FPL to participate in Insure Oklahoma. Since that time, the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, The State Chamber, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oklahoma and others have remained in contact with federal agency officials to encourage them to move forward with a waiver amendment required to implement this needed expansion, one that has already been approved by state lawmakers and signed by Gov. Brad Henry.

Insure Oklahoma is required by law to remain federally “budget neutral,” and the program has done so with remarkable success. The cost of the expansion is minimal compared to the program’s budget savings to date.

As the nation turns its attention to the critical issue of the uninsured next week, let’s remember that we have a fantastic initiative to address the problem right here in our own backyard. More creative public-private solutions like this are needed to reduce the ranks of the uninsured a national scale.

 

Let’s continue to lead the way by supporting and spreading awareness about Insure Oklahoma, a program that is doing worlds of good in our own hometowns.

 

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