Barbour: High-risk pools make case for Medicaid flexibility

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R), a possible 2012 presidential candidate, said anemic enrollment in new federal high-risk insurance pools is proof that states need more flexibility to run their Medicaid programs.

Enrollment in new federal insurance pools for individuals with preexisting conditions have fallen far short of original projections. Just more than 12,000 have enrolled as of February, far less than the 375,000 the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services actuary projected for the end of 2010.

The pools were included in the healthcare reform law to provide temporary coverage until 2014, when insurance companies can no longer discriminate against individuals with preexisting conditions.

Barbour, making the case for states to have more flexibility to shape Medicaid programs for the poor, said the lackluster showing in federal high-risk pools is indicative that the states are in a better position to determine their healthcare destinies.

Barbour, speaking after a National Governors Association healthcare meeting Sunday, said 3,500 people in his state signed up for a high-risk pool that predates his term as governor.

“We’re 1 percent of the population and we have a fourth of all the people they’ve signed up nationally for their program,” Barbour said.

Just dozens in Mississippi have signed up for the federal high-risk pool since opening last summer, Barbour said.

Barbour and other Republican governors on Sunday urged the federal government to provide more leeway to cash-strapped states to run Medicaid programs. They are floating Medicaid block grants, rather than a federal matching system, as a preferred method.

“The idea that the federal government knows better is dispelled just by looking at the high-risk pool,” Barbour said. 

The Department of Health and Human Services has defended the low enrollment figures in the high-risk pool, saying that federal healthcare programs are typically slow to gain momentum out of the gate.