Tenn. Gov. Phil Bredesen says he’s learned from mistakes that were made with the state’s expanded Medicaid program and doesn’t plan on repeating them with his new plan to provide health care access to Tennesseans who never had insurance.
“I have to say the Cover Tennessee approach is better than I tried to do originally with TennCare,” Bredesen told a group of reporters during an interview at a local restaurant. “Like a lot of things, when you have to go back to the drawing board it’s better.”
The governor said he’s looking forward to signing the plan he has billed as a market-based alternative to the mandatory universal health program signed into Massachusetts law last month.
Both chambers of the General Assembly approved the measure, but they must concur on changes before the governor can sign it into law.
State officials have said the plan would feature an affordable, and optional, health plan for businesses and low-income workers to buy into and maintain coverage as they move from job to job.
Optimistic estimates have 100,000 adults, 75,000 children and 15,000 chronically ill residents enrolling within three years. The three-year cost of the program is estimated at about $300 million.
Under the adult plan, the state would pay an average of $50 toward a $150 monthly premium, while employers would be given the option to kick in another $50.
Residents within 2.5 times the federal poverty level, $24,500 for an individual, $50,000 for a family of four, would be eligible for most of the Cover Tennessee proposal.
Bredesen said the plan is much different from TennCare, which was once one of the most generous government-sponsored heath care programs in the country.
Escalating TennCare costs led Bredesen to consider cutting 430,000 of the poor and disabled from the system. That number eventually dwindled to about 170,000 taken off its rolls last year.
The governor said one of the main structural differences between Cover Tennessee and TennCare is that the new plan is “not an entitlement program.”
“With TennCare, once you decide what are the eligible rules you’re along for the ride, if you have 100,000 in a category or 400,000,” Bredesen said.
But with Cover Tennessee, he said, “I or anyone else in the Legislature could any day say we’re stopping it” before problems start to occur.
Tony Garr, executive director of the Tennessee Health Care Campaign, an advocacy group for TennCare enrollees, said one problem with Cover Tennessee is that it fails to help the state’s sickest residents, in particular “the 67,000 terminally ill individuals cut from TennCare.”
“It’s not enough,” Garr said. “It leaves out some of the sickest and neediest of our citizens.”
During his lunch with reporters, Bredesen also discussed his decision earlier this week to grant a 15-day reprieve to death row inmate Sedley Alley.
Bredesen accepted the 4-3 recommendation of the state Board of Probation and Parole to grant the reprieve, after the board said further DNA testing of evidence should be conducted in the murder of 19-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Suzanne M. Collins.
The governor said he was surprised by the board’s vote but thought it best to be cautious.
“I want to treat each one of these very carefully,” he said. “Unlike any other sentence you can impose, this is one you can’t go back and fix if you didn’t get it right.”
Topics Tennessee
Was this article valuable?
Here are more articles you may enjoy.
Trigger Warning: Cyber Policy Wordings to Impact Coverage for Tech Outage 
USAA Renter’s Insurance Policyholder Charged with Multiple Counts of Fraud 
How California’s Homeowners Insurance Crisis Is Affecting Brokers 
Allstate, State Farm Sued Over $4 Billion Maui Fire Settlement 
