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West Virginia won't adopt its own high-risk pool
West Virginia this week became the latest state to opt against running its own high-risk pool for sick residents unable to buy their own insurance.
The reason?
"Republicans in the House of Delegates said the program might fund abortions and Democrats decided they didn't want to debate the issue," The Charleston Gazette reports.
The high-risk pools, created in the Democrats' new health reform law, are designed to provide insurance to uninsured folks with preexisting conditions who can't find coverage elsewhere. The pools will expire when state-based exchange plans launch in 2014.
West Virginia has roughly 1,200 residents who qualify for the high-risk pools, the Gazette reports. They will still be eligible to get insurance through a pool administered by the federal government.
