The Senate’s early action budget proposal saves the Basic Health Plan as a means for thousands of working people to pay for health insurance who can’t afford private insurance but who are not eligible for Medicaid.

Our approach is to reform the BHP by tightening eligibility and reducing the number of enrollees, while still preserving the program, continuing services for those who need it most, and protecting the infrastructure we need to be eligible for federal assistance in 2014.

So: Reform and reduce but preserve and protect.

The BHP ensures that 54,000 individuals all across the state including pregnant woman and individuals with cancer, AIDS, diabetes, liver disease, post-traumatic stress can pay for health care.

There is no question that we need to make fiscally difficult decisions to get our state out of the budget crisis and on a more sustainable path.

Retaining the BHP represents:

· The right fiscal direction. Eliminating it wouldn’t eliminate the health care needs of the individuals it serves; they would instead receive their care in the most costly and least effective way possible – the emergency room;

· The right moral direction. The impact that the elimination of this program would have on the health of thousands who are already sick could literally be the difference between life and death; and

· The right direction for the future. As a result of federal health care reform, our state will be eligible for considerable federal assistance available in two years for subsidized state health plans like the BHP.

Our plan freezes incoming enrollments and limits existing enrollees to those with a valid social security number. This allows us to accomplish three key goals in this tough budget climate:

· Continuing services for approximately 41,000 individuals whose health depends on the BHP,

· Keeping the program on a glide path to 2014 and eventual federal assistance to support and expand the program, and

· Saving $7.5 million in this biennium, and $119 million in 2011-13.

Similarly, we’ll look to thread the needle between achieving savings but preserving services for those who need them most in other critical health care areas such as the Disability Lifeline for low-income individuals who are temporarily disabled and unable to work, the Children’s Health Program, maternity support services and alcohol and drug abuse treatment services.