It would use the existing federal Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and Medicaid funds, and add state funds being received from an existing insurance premium tax which now go to the state’s general fund to leverage more federal funds, he said.

To ensure that uninsured kids get into the program, Healthy Kids Montana also includes an “enrollment” element, through which hospitals, doctors, Head Start officials and others would be trained to get uninsured children enrolled.

All of that is fine with Janette Raymond, a mother of three. She lives with her husband, Don Norbury, in Grantsdale. Norburry works at M & M Construction in Hamilton. He grew up in the Bitterroot; she is a third generation Bitterrooter.

The family attended the fair last week. Raymond took time to talk with Morrison about the health care plan at the Bitterroot Human Rights Alliance booth.

“My husband has a good-paying job,” she said, “making $13 an hour. I worked for Crazy Mike’s Video till I had my third child; then I stopped working because it made more sense to stay home than to pay for the child care.

“If I went back to work, we would no longer be eligible for health insurance for the kids,” she said. “They would lose their Medicaid. So this initiative would help me go back to work and increase the family income, as well as get the kids health care. That’s why this is so important to me.”

Raymond said he gathered petition signatures in Ravalli County to help get the initiative on the November ballot.

“The kids are okay now,” she said. “But if a kid gets sick, it’s nice to know you can take them to the doctor.”

“Healthy Montana Kids would insure 30,000 uninsured kids, and by improving their health care also improve their education. And it would also draw into the state about $75 million in federal matching funds,” Morrison said.

The matching money comes through Medicare and CHIP, the Children’s Health Improvement Program. The plan creates what Morrison termed a new “storefront” and makes Medicare and CHIP “invisible.”

Neither program would stop, he emphasized. Instead, Healthy Montana Kids (HMK) would utilize both existing programs, and supplement them.

HMK would raise the eligibility on CHIP to 250 percent of the poverty level for a single parent family, $50,000 for two parents with two kids.

There is a reason why the numbers are pegged well above the federal poverty level. In 2007, the federal Health and Human Services Department set the poverty level at $10,210 for one person, $13,690 for two, and $20,650 for a family of four.

“That 250 percent of poverty level is not anywhere close to the highest (eligibility level) in the U.S.,” Morrison said.

On the other hand, Montana has the fourth lowest CHIP eligibility ceiling in the country. HMK would put Montana at around number 17 out of the 50 states, up from number 46, he explained.

On Medicare, Montana’s income ceiling was the lowest in the US until the last legislative session, when the legislature raised eligibility in Montana to 175 percent of poverty level, making Montana the fourth most restrictive state for CHIP eligibility.

“So we are not shooting for the moon,” Morrison said.

Healthy Montana Kids would deal with the biggest problem Montana and all the states have in children’s health care: enrollment, he said.

Last year, President Bush vetoed a bill that would have expanded CHIP, saying it would cost too much and would include children from families who were making enough to afford their own insurance. It would have covered, in some states, children from families making as much as $80,000 per year.

“During the CHIP debate last year, President Bush said to Congress, if you limit eligibility to 250 percent of poverty, I’ll sign the bill,” Morrison said. “But Congress could not agree on that. But this initiative recognizes that in Montana, 250 percent of poverty includes almost all of our uninsured.

“We can cover more kids if we do enrollment instead of going above 250 percent of poverty,” Morrison said.

Nationwide, two thirds of the uninsured kids are eligible under their state’s rules, but aren’t enrolled. Healthy Montana Kids includes an enrollment element.

“It deputizes hospitals, doctors, schools, YMCAs, Head Start as enrollment partners,” he said. “They promote and actually sign up the kids. When a child is born, or gets immunization shots, or goes to Head Start, they’ll do enrollment. They’ll get enrollment training with Department of Health and Human Services, which is applying for a federal grant to do enrollment. I’m working with DPHHS now, before it passes, to develop the sign-up system.”

If the initiative passes, Morrison believes it will become a model for the country.

The private sector gets a bonus, too. The initiative would allow HMK funds to go to private providers when the parents of the child to be enrolled have access to an insurance plan, if it’s cheaper.

And in most cases it is, Morrison said.

“For most family plans, to add a child costs $1,000, but it costs $1,800 under CHIP. So if people have a plan available but not the money to make use of it, we will get their kid on a plan, and in a way that is less costly to the state, which means more kids covered, and the private insurers get a piece of it,” he explained.

“Polling has shown that people support this by 70 percent, plus or minus,” Morrison said. “And that includes a strong majority of Republicans; there’s bipartisan support. And some of our leadership is from some well-known Republicans, including Lt. Governor John Bollinger.”

Reporter Joel Gallob can be reached at jgallob@ravallirepublic.com or at 363-3300

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