A key D.C. Council member will propose today bringing the District ever closer to universal health care through a new, publicly subsidized insurance program, one that also requires every city resident to carry insurance or face fines.
Healthy D.C., as conceived by at-large Councilman David Catania, would provide “accessible and affordable health insurance” to as many as 25,000 uninsured individuals who do not qualify for Medicaid or the District’s safety net, the D.C. Healthcare Alliance. It would also penalize, via a $250 a year fine, those D.C. residents who decline to acquire and maintain health coverage of some sort.
By 2010 there is a “reasonable expectation of having 99 percent of our population insured,” Catania said. The penalty for remaining uninsured, he said, is “something we expect to use very sparingly.”
That said, the District might require every resident to check a box on their income tax form confirming that they are insured, Catania said, and lying on the form may subject that person to charges of tax fraud. The details are still to be worked out.
“We don’t want this to be about penalizing people,” Catania said. “We want this to be about providing people the most affordable health care of its kind in the country.”
Healthy D.C. is to be a partnership with CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield, financed with a monthly premium on users, an increase in the premium tax on commercial insurers, a new premium tax on Health Maintenance Organizations, and a doubling of the cigarette tax to $2 per pack. The taxes and fees will raise about $50 million.
Under the proposed legislation, the monthly premium for Healthy D.C. users would range from $20 to $100, depending on gross income. The program would launch July 1, 2009.
“This is huge, in terms of health care for the city,” said Robert Malson, executive director of the D.C. Hospital Association. “This is long needed.”
Malson estimated that D.C. hospitals spend upward of $20 million a year on “charitable” or “uncompensated” care.
