Health care committee must find solutions

Art Nadler

Tuesday, Dec. 2, 1997 | 10:52 a.m.

While the Legislative Committee on Health Care hasn't agreed on how to provide health care insurance to Nevada's poor children, it has agreed that it needs to agree soon.

"The next meeting or two, we may have to close the door where no one can leave until we've reached a decision," Chairman Sen. Raymond Rawson, R-Las Vegas, said Monday in a meeting at the Grant Sawyer State Office Building that was teleconferenced to Carson City. "It's coming to that."

Gov. Bob Miller has proposed a plan called Nevada Check-Up in which $7 million of unused state Medicaid funds would be matched with $13 million in federal funds to insure 20,000 poor children throughout the state.

Opponents of the governor's plan have suggested that the state should contribute $16.4 million in order to qualify for Nevada's full allotment of $30 million in federal funds.

William Hale, chief executive officer of University Medical Center, has proposed administering the program through the county hospital. He suggested setting up a fee-for-service system, where UMC would bill the federal government out of the $30 million fund.

"Bringing the county into this is still a viable option," Rawson said. "We don't have a final plan yet."

Rawson said Nevada also might be able to tap into certain windfall monies coming into the state to reach the $16.4 commitment.

Assemblywoman Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, thought the $1.5 million trust Blue Cross Blue Shield of Colorado pledged to give to Nevada for uninsured children once BCBS of Nevada merged with it could be another funding source.

The governor has given the committee until April to have a program in place. A final proposal has to be submitted to the federal government by Oct. 1, 1998.

Chris Thompson, administrator of the Division of Health Care Financing and Policy, said the state would not lose any federal money, as long as the 1999 Legislature contributes the full $16.4 million when it convenes.