STATE-SPONSORED INSURANCE MAY LOSE ITS FUNDING

Missouri's special health insurance program for children of families that meet certain income guidelines expires July 1, 2002. If the state is to continue to offer the welfare program to the nearly 57,000 children currently enrolled and thousands more who are considered eligible, the Legislature must pass a law to extend and fund it.

Unfortunately, the state finds itself in a predicament of not knowing whether the federal government, which currently funds the bulk of the program, will continue to do so even if the General Assembly were to extend the program past the expiration date. If the program isn't extended, most if not all of the children served by the program will be without health insurance.

The program is called MC+ and provides health insurance for children under age 19 in families with incomes as high as $50,000 a policy that is overzealous and runs up the cost of the program.

Most of the children enrolled, about 44,500, are covered by the state at no cost to their families, but about 2,400 are in families with incomes in excess of $50,000. The state is pushing the program to try to get more children enrolled, and it is estimated that as many as 90,000 children eventually will be covered by it.

At the same time, however, little thought is being given to inform the families the possibility exists the program will not be extended or funded past mid-2002, and that has at least one state lawmaker, Rep. Patrick Naeger, concerned. Naeger has introduced a measure in the General Assembly that would require the Missouri Department of Social Services to post warning signs and disclose in any advertising that the program is set to expire and coverage would be uncertain past the expiration date.

The annual cost of the program is put at $81 million this fiscal year with $51 million coming from the federal government. The cost of the program will grow significantly as more children are enrolled.

The Legislature must now decide whether to extend and fund MC+ or let it run out. Either way, the state owes it to the families who have been enjoying benefits of the program since its inception in 1998 to move swiftly on the matter.