HARRISBURG, Pa. — Gov. Tom Corbett is pressing the federal government for an exemption that he said will prevent about 70,000 Pennsylvania children in a state-subsidized health insurance program from having to switch to Medicaid, although a public interest law center challenged Corbett's claims and said the children will be better off under Medicaid.
Corbett wrote Thursday to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius about his latest request, part of his effort to press her agency to make enough concessions to a federally funded expansion of Medicaid before he will change his mind and allow Pennsylvania to join it.
A Sebelius spokesman did not immediately comment on the letter. Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, a public interest law center that advocates for the poor, disputed Corbett's claims, including his core contention that some families will have to switch doctors and will have a smaller choice of doctors that they can visit.
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For most kids, moving from the Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, to Medicaid will not cause significant disruptions, Community Legal Services said. Virtually all CHIP health insurance companies have a Medicaid product, but Pennsylvania can simply require that doctors and hospitals that accept CHIP also accept Medicaid, it said.
In any case, Medicaid is better for families than CHIP, it said.
"Medicaid covers all medically necessary services, as opposed to CHIP, which provides more limited coverage," Community Legal Services said. "Medicaid can work along with other coverage, while CHIP disqualifies any child with any other health coverage."
Community Legal Services also challenged Corbett's estimate of the number of children who would have to be moved, saying that there 40,000 children who must be moved to Medicaid beginning in 2014.
In the letter, Corbett said his administration anticipates have to transfer about 70,000 children from CHIP to Medicaid.
Under the 2010 federal health care law, states must expand the eligibility limits of Medicaid for children ages 6 to 19 beginning in 2014, though CHIP in Pennsylvania already provides coverage to those children. The state government gets more money from the federal government to cover a child under CHIP than it does under Medicaid, and the law will maintain that higher reimbursement, Community Legal Services said.
Since Corbett became governor, the number of children in CHIP has slid by about 6,000 to 187,000, with particular losses among the group of children for whom CHIP is free. Department of Insurance officials say they are unable to explain why the number of children in CHIP has declined.
About 1.1 million children are on Medicaid.
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