Democrats in the Iowa Senate warn about 11-thousand Iowa kids are in danger of being uninsured because their families may be unable to buy individual insurance plans through the Affordable Care Act’s exchange next year. Senator Janet Petersen, a Democrat from Des Moines, is calling on Republican Governor Kim Reynolds to approve a stop-gap plan for the parents who to get insurance for those 11-thousand children. “They shouldn’t have to worry about wrapping their kid in a bubble wrap for 2018 because they can’t get health insurance and they can’t afford to have their kid break an arm on the playground,” Petersen says. “It’s just simply wrong. We need answers.”

Petersen’s proposal would let those parents buy private insurance through the state-run HAWK-I (HAWK-eye) program. The program currently subsidizes insurance for about 60-thousand children who live in a household where the yearly income is at or below three-hundred percent of the poverty line. Petersen says federal bureaucrats would have to grants Iowa a waiver to implement the stop-gap proposal she’s offering for 11-thousand more Iowa kids. “Families’ financial security depends on answers,” Petersen says. “Congress is not coming up with solutions.”

Medica is the only insurance company that plans to offer individual insurance policies on the state’s Affordable Care Act exchange in 2018 and the company has warned premiums will jump 43 percent. Iowa’s insurance commissioner has offered a plan that might lessen the premium hike, but federal officials have to provide a waiver for his proposal, too.

(Radio Iowa)