Gov. John deJongh Jr.’s health reform task force looked at a recent analysis of the territory’s private insurance market at its latest meeting, as it prepares to make a recommendation on whether a health insurance exchange or expanded Medicaid funding would be best for the territory.
According to a release issued by Government House, under President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, the territory has $24.9 million in federal assistance which it can use to subsidize insurance premiums on a local health insurance exchange.
A health insurance exchange would help uninsured people and small businesses purchase private health insurance plans by creating a one-stop online health insurance market, where Virgin Islanders could shop for different plans and access government subsidies to assist their purchases.
If an exchange is set up and if it offers competitive private insurance plans, many of the territory’s uninsured would become insured, giving them more access to health care and providing the territory’s hospitals and other providers with more paying customers and fewer nonpaying ones.
About 27.8 percent of Virgin Islanders – some 33,000 individuals – are uninsured, according to Taetia Phillips-Dorsett, Government House’s coordinator on health reform.
Alternatively the territory can add the $24.9 million to a pool of $275 million in extra Medicaid funding the territory would be eligible for over the next decade. If the territory can fund the 45 percent local match, it could access more federal Medicaid dollars over the upcoming decade than if the funding goes to subsidize premiums.
The territory has until Oct. 1 to make a decision and until January 2014 to set up an exchange. A previous study suggested the most practical and affordable way to set up an exchange may be to partner with a state that is already in the process of setting up an exchange.
The study of the private insurance market is the third layer of data the task force will evaluate in order to provide deJongh with information and a recommendation to help decide which route to take, according to the statement from Government House.
Value Advisory Group conducted telephone surveys, focus groups and interviewed key stakeholders in its study of the territory’s existing insurance market, Government House said. The group subcontracted with Milliman, one of the world’s largest independent actuarial and consulting firms, to conduct the actuarial analysis portion of the study, which updates the V.I. Health Insurance Survey conducted by the Bureau of Economic Research in 2009.
At the meeting, representatives from Milliman discussed how insurance premium and cost-sharing subsidies from the federal government could apply to the Virgin Islands market, as well as the financial impact of the various options available to the territory, according to the statement.
The Task Force meeting was chaired by John McDonald, director of the Division of Banking and Insurance. The next meeting of the task force is scheduled for March 26 at Government House on St. Croix.
