Federal Grant to Fund Maine's First Health Insurance Co-op

The co-op will fill a gap in current health insurance coverage. Maine Community Health Options CEO Kevin Lewis says it specifically targets small businesses and uninsured or underinsured individuals, offering subsidies to people who are living at up to 400 percent of the poverty line. "So Maine Community Health Options is, by our birth right in every sense, a safety-net health plan," Lewis says.

Lewis says the co-op is particularly well suited to Maine, where small businesses are the engine of the economy but often can't find affordable health insurance. It works similar to any other co-op model, where members are the decision-makers. They elect a board of directors that seeks constant guidance not only from members, but health clinicians.

"Maine is the home of a lot of innovation in terms of care delivery," Lewis says. "And so by leveraging what's working, by paying for what's working, we will reach that value-based benefit design." Meaning health insurance that actually delivers what people want and need.

Plus, profits go back into the co-op to help members with things like lower premiums and improved benefits. The grant to fund the co-op is a product of the Affordable Care Act. Maine is one of 18 states that have currently received grants.

"There is more to the Affordable Care Act than just the individual insurance mandate, or the Supreme Court decision," says Dr. Wendy Wolf (left), CEO of the Maine Health Access Foundation, which provided developmental support for the plan. "There is support for innovation, there is support to try to develop care delivery in the thatway patients want it to happen."

Wolf says beyond its innovative nature, just providing insurance has a dramatic impact on someone's life. "We know it is the most important predictor of someone's health--and frankly, premature mortality--is whether you are insured or uninsured," she says.

Maine Community Health Options Board President James Davis says expanded, cheaper health insurance could also be an important indicator of economic success, which he says, the state sorely needs.

"Maine's health care costs are the 10th highest in the nation," Davis says. "As we try to create a business environment, whether it's for entrepreneurs, small businesses, family-owned businesses, all the way up to very large corporations, that's not a point we can sell."

Maine Community Health Options is initially expected to create 25 jobs. It will begin enrolling subscribers in the fall of 2013, and coverage begins Jan. 1, 2014. Their goal is to have 15,000 subscribers in their first year, and ultimately grow to 50,000.

Photo by Patty Wight.

Source: http://www.mpbn.net/Home/tabid/36/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3478/ItemId/23322/Default.aspx

Medal Count Sam Mikulak London 2012 diving Tim Berners-Lee Olympics 2012 Schedule Kenneth Branagh Lupe Ontiveros