Health plan for poor kids gets mired in rules debate

Art Nadler

Tuesday, Aug. 4, 1998 | 10:45 a.m.

A self-imposed state Medicaid requirement has legislators scrambling for a loophole -- anything that will jump start the stalled Nevada Check Up program.

The state program to insure about 17,000 poor children was scheduled to begin July 1. But the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) didn't like the way poor families would have been screened, so it didn't approve Nevada Check Up.

HCFA has mandated that anyone who qualifies for Medicaid must fill out an application. Part of the longer state Medicaid application requires that a family's assets be reported.

The Legislative Committee on Health Care doesn't want families to claim assets. They want a shorter, simpler application based only on finances.

Until this bottleneck is resolved, the state program has been put on hold. According to Christopher Thompson, administrator for the state Division on Health Care Financing and Policy, 5,400 families have applied for Nevada Check Up.

Just under 2,000 families qualified for Nevada Check Up, Thompson said. But because the program hasn't been approved by HCFA, they have been left without health insurance. The remainder who qualify for Medicaid were sent applications in July.

"We will have dual applications, and thousands of children not covered," an angry Assemblywoman Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, told committee members Monday.

Charlotte Crawford, director of the state Department of Human Resources, said the Interim Finance Committee "didn't ask us to drop the assets test."

But Assemblyman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas, and a member of the IFC, said the committee was never asked to amend the assets requirement.

"I think if it would have been brought to us, it would have been changed," Arberry said. "It's fine and dandy that they have passed the buck to us."

Risa Lang, principal deputy for the Legislative Council, said the procedure was for Crawford to ask the IFC to change the assets requirement. If the IFC approved the change, then it would also need approval from the federal government.

All this could have been done, Lang said, without waiting for the Legislature to begin its session in January.

Originally, the state thought it had 60,000 poor children who qualified for Nevada Check Up. The federal government would have given $30.4 million toward $16.4 million matching state funds.

With the revised estimate of 17,000 children who qualify, the state would contribute $7 million to receive $13 million in federal money.

Thompson said UNLV researchers are currently conducting a survey to make sure that 17,000 children qualify. He expects the survey to be completed next month.

"September is the absolute drop-dead date," Sen. Bernice Mathews, D-Sparks, said, mirroring many of the committee members' eagerness to have Nevada Check Up under way by this fall.