HUSKY Focus Groups - What Parents Are Saying

BACKGROUND

It is estimated that 60,000 Connecticut children are living without health care coverage . These children are more likely to live in low to moderate income working families with two parents. As health care costs increase and employers shift more of those costs onto families, we can expect the number of children without insurance to rise.

Uninsured children face uncertain futures. Children without health insurance are less healthy than children with coverage. Thirty seven percent have no doctor visits throughout a year, more than twice the rate for children with insurance. Lack of insurance often forces families to delay treatment when a child is sick, hoping that the problem goes away. Consequently, when uninsured children do access care, the problem has often become more serious and harder to treat. Uninsured children are more likely to be hospitalized for conditions that could have been treated as outpatients.

Parents of uninsured children share the worries of all parents about their children's health, but they face the added burden that they may not be able to afford to make their children whole if tragedy strikes. Even routine medical expenses can strain a middle income budget. An illness or injury can wipe out a life's savings. The fourth most common reason for bankruptcy is unpaid medical bills.

HUSKY offers these families relief. HUSKY provides affordable, comprehensive health insurance to uninsured children at any income level. HUSKY's benefit package is generous including physician visits, hospitalization, prescriptions, outpatient surgical services, behavioral health treatment, diagnostic tests and X-rays, emergency care, eye care, hearing exams and dental care. Costs to families are reasonable and vary by income level; many families pay nothing.

To reduce the stigma of publicly funded health care and to improve outreach and marketing, policymakers merged the current Medicaid program for children with the expansion program under the new name, HUSKY. The two programs have a single four-page application that can be mailed or completed over the phone by calling a toll-free phone number, 1-877-CTHUSKY. The original Medicaid program covering children living in families below 185% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) is designated HUSKY Part A, and the new program for children living in families with higher incomes is called HUSKY Part B. However, this distinction was intended to be invisible to families.

To increase HUSKY enrollment, the Department of Social Services and the Consumer Access Subcommittee of the legislative Medicaid Managed Care Council undertook a joint project to conduct focus group interviews with parents of eligible children to assess their attitudes about HUSKY and collect their suggestions. DSS has also conducted a survey of current HUSKY families to obtain quantitative information on the experiences of enrolled HUSKY customers .

The Department of Social Services is the state agency responsible for administering HUSKY. The Medicaid Managed Care Council is a legislative oversight council consisting of legislators, advocates, consumers, health care providers, managed care companies and state agencies. The Council works collaboratively to review progress, identify problems and find solutions to continuously improve Connecticut's Medicaid Managed Care and HUSKY programs. The Consumer Access Subcommittee of the Council is a working group devoted to ensuring that every Connecticut resident eligible for services under the programs has access to that care.

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