South Carolina Healthcare Voices

The Haley administration is leaving hundreds of thousands of federal health-care dollars in limbo when the money could be spent right away to help uninsured residents, patient advocates said.

For the second time in recent weeks, advocates said consumers are being harmed by what they called politically motivated dallying, as the state fails to spend federal money it requested to implement health care reform.

At issue now is a $441,000 “consumer assistance” program intended to help South Carolinians learn about changes to health insurance and enroll some of them for coverage under the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The South Carolina Department of Insurance, which received the money from a federal agency in October, said it would use the grant to:

–Contract non-profit groups to help people enroll for coverage,

–Hire people to field and resolve insurance complaints using updated computer systems.

–Hold eight educational forums around the state, where officials would discuss health reform and hand out new pamphlets detailing changes.

More than seven months into the yearlong grant, officials from the state Department of Insurance, the agency in charge of the money, acknowledged they have made little progress.

In fact, the department seems to have reversed course, shunning the goals it had set out to accomplish in its September grant application submitted to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“The money is sitting there,” said Sue Berkowitz, an advocate for the uninsured who heads the Appleseed Legal Justice Center. “They’re not doing what they promised the federal government they would do when they got this grant.” (more…)