Health insurance law for children

Chicago -- Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed a measure on Tuesday intended to allow all children in Illinois, including those in working-class and middle-class families, to obtain health insurance.



National experts on health care said the new law, which would offer discounts on premiums for those who qualify, was the broadest plan to insure children by any state.



Political leaders in other states, the experts said, are certain to be watching whether Illinois succeeds in expanding coverage to its 250,000 children who are now uninsured, about half of whom are not from the poorest families but from families earning more than $40,000 a year.



Blagojevich, a Democrat, said he hoped that the move would lead the way for a nation that needs to face a growing problem of middle-income families who cannot afford insurance premiums.



Critics of the program, which the governor says will cost the state $45 million in its first year, said they feared that such a sweeping offer could end up costing far more at a time when the state's budget is strained and might turn Illinois into a refuge for families from other states desperate to insure their children.



Aides to Blagojevich said that the program, known as All Kids, was meticulously detailed and would work. Families who earn too much to be eligible for the existing state and federally financed health programs, including the widely available KidCare, may buy into the new plan.



The state costs, the aides said, will be paid for by shifting the management of 1.7 million Medicaid recipients. Those patients will no longer go to any doctor on a list of eligible doctors but to a single physician who will work on more problems earlier, saving an estimated $56 million the first year.



A family's costs for All Kids will depend on the household income. A family of four earning $41,000 a year will pay $40 a month for one child or $80 a month for two or more children. The co-payment for doctors' visits will be $10 each. A family of four earning $61,000 to $79,000 will pay $70 for one child and $140 for two or more children. The co-payment will be $15.



People with higher incomes and without insurance also are eligible, though the premiums increase significantly.



Other states have tackled the same issue, but none has settled on a program as sweeping or comprehensive as the Illinois law, according to Diane Rowland, executive vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health research group.



In California last month, Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have provided access to coverage for all uninsured children in the state, saying he believed that children should be insured but that the bill failed to detail how to pay for the plan.



Massachusetts has a similar but less extensive plan than Illinois, a comparison shows. Although Massachusetts offers coverage to all children, the coverage is limited for benefits such as prescription medicines, eyeglasses, hearing aids, and mental health and substance abuse services.