Minnesotans jam lines to join state health care plan

The state will try to ease a backlog by hiring more workers to help the poor enroll in MinnesotaCare.

By WARREN WOLFE, Star Tribune

Last update: August 25, 2009 - 9:46 AM

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Applications for MinnesotaCare, the state's insurance plan for the poor and working poor, have shot up 25 percent so far this year.

The increase appears to reflect layoffs in a weak economy and the rising cost of health insurance, which has caused employers to drop coverage or shift more costs to employees.

Last month alone, MinnesotaCare applications rose 43 percent from July 2008, reaching 5,473.

The crush of applicants has doubled the time required to process applications, to eight weeks, and phone lines are often jammed because the agency that manages the program now answers the phone only between 12:30 and 4 p.m. so workers can spend more time on the paperwork backlog, officials acknowledged Monday.

Although the increase in applications was expected, the department has 15 new processors in training to supplement the 114 already on staff, said Lisa Wilder, spokeswoman for the Minnesota Department of Human Services. Another 12 will come on board in mid September.

"We have clients whose applications aren't approved for three months or longer," said Julia McCarthy of Portico Healthnet, a nonprofit agency in St. Paul that helps uninsured people get health care. "Since approval is not retroactive, they may be forced to wait a long time for needed health care, or to run up bills they can't pay.

"The problem is that if there's anything missing in the application, it gets kicked back, fixed, then goes to the back of the line for another eight weeks," McCarthy said.

Slumping job market

The increase in applications is "primarily a reflection of the weaker economy," Wilder said. "More employers have dropped coverage, and more employees have lost their jobs."

People like Ngan Truong, 33, of Roseville, who on Monday added her renewal application to more than 10,000 MinnesotaCare applications in the pipeline.

"My mother said to me, 'Your car is insured. You should be insured too,'" said Truong. She went on MinnesotaCare last year after she was laid off from a hearing-aid manufacturer. Now she is a student at Hennepin Technical College to become an accountant.

"I don't have many health problems, but I'm very grateful to have MinnesotaCare," said Truong, an American citizen who was born in Vietnam. "With your health, it can change very fast."

To qualify for MinnesotaCare, a client must be a state resident, uninsured and not able to get health insurance through an employer who offers to pay at least half the monthly cost, and meet certain income and asset restrictions.

For instance, an adult without children qualifies with income at or less than 200 percent of the federal poverty line -- or $2,257 a month for one person. Pregnant women, children under age 21 and parents with children qualify with income at or below 275 percent of poverty -- $4,198 a month for a family of three.

This year, the $532 million program will provide coverage for a monthly average of about 117,200 Minnesotans, up about 4,000 people from last year.

While enrollment is projected to rise 11 percent over the next two years, rising medical costs will push up the program's outlays about 35 percent, to $715 million in 2011.

Enrollees pay about 7 percent of the program's cost through premiums; the federal government pays 28 percent and the state about 67 percent through a tax on health care providers.

For more information, call 211, the statewide information and referral service, or go to www.dhs.state.mn.us and search for MinnesotaCare.

Warren Wolfe • 612-673-7253

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