Washington State Insurance Committee Recommends Changes To Increase Enrollment in High-Risk Pool

A committee of the Washington State Health Insurance Pool on June 25 recommended changes to increase the number of people in the state's high-risk health insurance pool, the Seattle Times reports. The committee's recommendation would make stricter the Washington Standard Health Questionnaire, which analyzes the health status of people who wish to purchase individual policies and assigns those people a point score. The state requires insurers to sell individual policies to people with scores of 329 or lower. Insurers are not required to sell coverage to individuals with scores of 330 or higher; those people can purchase insurance from the state's high-risk insurance pool (Song, Seattle Times, 6/26). The state Legislature in the spring of 2000 created the high-risk pool in as a response to the three largest health insurance companies ending individual policies because of financial losses. Under law, the premiums for those in the high-risk pool can be as high as 150% of those for other plans. The high-risk pool is intended to cover 8% of all individual insurance buyers (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 12/8/00). The committee recommended that the state lower the point threshold to 288 to increase the percentage of state residents enrolled in the high-risk pool from 6.5% to 8%, the Times reports. It also recommended the addition of penalty points for uterine polyps and added 12 health conditions to a list of diseases that automatically disqualify an individual from receiving coverage, according to the Times. Sean Corry, a consumer representative on the high-risk pool board, said the proposed questionnaire changes may prompt some people to go without insurance. However, board member Rob Kuecker, chief actuary of Regence, one of the state's largest insurers, said the pool allows the individual health policy market to remain viable. The pool's full board is expected to approve the changes July 10; the new scoring method would take effect in October (Seattle Times, 6/26).