Expanding Health Care Coverage

Project Title

HealthPass-Healthy NY Integration

Grant Amount

$103,190

Priority Area

Expanding Health Care Coverage

Date Awarded

January 13, 2009

Region

NYC

Status

Closed

Website

http://www.healthpass.com/

HealthPass is a nonprofit initiative that offers an array of insurance plans to small businesses.

With a planning grant from the New York Health Foundation’s “Expanding Coverage Options in the Small Group and Individual Market in New York State” program, HealthPass analyzed the feasibility of adding Healthy NY, a State-sponsored insurance plan that offers coverage to businesses with 50 or fewer employees, sole proprietors, and individuals, to the HealthPass menu of insurance plans. For those who met the income-based eligibility criteria, the State subsidized benefits, allowing Healthy NY to offer premiums at a lower cost. HealthPass believed that if Healthy NY could be brought into HealthPass, more small businesses would provide coverage to their low-income workers.

This grant was one of five organizations that received a planning grant from the 2008 NYHealth request for proposals (RFP), “Expanding Coverage Options in the Small Group and Individual Market in New York State.” The RFP grew directly out of the Foundation’s desire to generate ideas for expanding health insurance options for small businesses and sole proprietors.

Read an NYHealth special report that contains a summary of findings from this RFP.

Half of New York State’s uninsured workers work in businesses with fewer than 25 employees or are self-employed. Small businesses pay more for health insurance premiums, and their costs have grown faster than for other categories of employers by size. With a planning grant from the New York Health Foundation’s “Expanding Coverage Options in the Small Group and Individual Market in New York State” program, HealthPass, a nonprofit initiative that offers an array of insurance plans to small businesses, will analyze the feasibility of adding Healthy NY, a State-sponsored insurance plan that offers coverage to businesses with 50 or fewer employees, to its menu of insurance plans with the hope that more small businesses will provide coverage to their low-income workers.

Through this project, HealthPass will: 1) expand the options for small businesses who qualify for the Healthy NY program; 2) ease administrative complexities of offering a Healthy NY option under one unified program; 3) leverage the Healthy NY subsidies through wider distribution of the products; 4) encourage brokers to present the Healthy NY products to small businesses interested in HealthPass; and 5) expand upon the successes of HealthPass in reaching the working uninsured.