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The state's high-risk health insurance pool is lowering its premiums, starting July 1.
New and renewing members of Inclusive Health, created in 2007 by the N.C. legislature, will get reductions of 1 percent to 22 percent, depending on benefit plans. The lower rates are made possible by a new law that also broadens eligibility for the N.C. Health Insurance Risk Pool.
Inclusive Health offers affordable health insurance for people with pre-existing medical conditions who don't have access to group coverage or to government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Premiums are capped, and eligibility is dictated by state law. The program has 6,535 enrollees.
Before now, the high-risk pool was open to those who had exhausted 18 months of COBRA coverage after losing insurance on the job. Now, people who are insured under COBRA and who have pre-existing medical conditions can qualify for Inclusive Health if COBRA premiums exceed what they would pay for the high-risk pool.
The new law also allows the insurance pool to expand access to a premium subsidy program that's funded by a $2.1million federal grant. People with incomes up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level can qualify for the subsidy. That equals $32,490 for a single person or $66,150 for a family of four.
