Compromise health insurance measure heads to Bush

From Chicago Sun Times

WASHINGTON-- Illinois' state health insurance pool should get $5.4 million under a compromise measure Sen. Dick Durbin helped push through after negotiating a more than $1 million increase over what the original bill proposed.

"This is a victory for uninsured Illinoisans who rely on this state-federal program for their health insurance," Durbin, D-Ill., said hours after the Senate late Wednesday approved the legislation by unanimous consent.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., now goes to President Bush for his expected signature.

It previously was approved by the House on unanimous consent.

Last September, Durbin engineered a compromise that offered a better deal for Illinoisans. The move toward a better deal for the state came after Durbin, the Senate's second-highest ranking Democrat, had blocked the original bill for seven months.

"I could not stand idly by when the earlier bill would have resulted in hundreds of Illinoisans losing their health insurance," Durbin said Thursday.

The Council for Affordable Health Insurance Care had questioned Durbin's hard-nosed negotiating tactics in a letter, signed by administrators of 20 state health plans, to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

"One senator should not stop needed help to states providing an important health insurance safety net to the sickest Americans," the letter said.

At stake was $300 million-plus in funding nationwide for the approximately 30 high-risk health insurance pools that provide coverage for those with medical conditions that make it impossible to get coverage in the regular market.

Durbin estimated Illinois would have received $3.8 million under the original bill, which would have been a 60 percent cut. South Dakota, a sparsely populated state, would have seen its funding double.

Based on figures released by the Illinois Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan, Illinois would have received $4.4 million a year under the original Senate bill, instead of its previous average of $7.4 million during two previous years, which largely was used to cut premiums for the state's participants.

Illinois has about 17,000 participants in high-risk insurance pools. In 2003, the state had $117 million in uninsured losses, with almost 70 percent of the tab borne by patients. The cost was kept down through subsidies such as assessments on insurance companies, state revenues and federal grants.