health care
We Have You
Covered Tennessee’s new health-care initiative caters to working adults, kids and the chronically ill
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Cover Tennessee features flexibility, even for those suffering from chronic illnesses and pre-existing conditions.
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TNEDG.COM
t one time, Tennessee had one of the most generous government-sponsored health-care programs in the country – TennCare. But when it threatened to bankrupt the state, it was clear change was in order. “We had one of the most extensive and expensive Medicaid programs in the nation, yet we had one of the worst health status scores in the country,” says Laurie Lee, Tennessee’s deputy executive director for insurance administration. “Basically, we had spent a lot of money without improving our state’s health status.” Another problem was that even at the height of TennCare, more than 600,000 Tennesseans were still uninsured. “We did a survey in 2005, and we found that most of the adult population that was uninsured were working 40 hours a week, and more than half of those were working for small businesses that couldn’t afford health insurance,” Lee says. In response, the state created Cover Tennessee – a new health initiative administered by BlueCross BlueShield that will address the problem of working adults who have no health insurance, as well as uninsured kids and chronically ill adults who’ve been deemed uninsurable due to pre-existing medical conditions.
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