Bredesen starts dissolving TennCare program

Gives Bonnyman 7-day review period

Email | Print By David A. Fox

11-10-2004 11:37 AM — Gov. Phil Bredesen announced Wednesday at a 11:15 a.m. press conference that he is beginning the process of dissolving the $7.8 billion TennCare program. However, he said that he has granted a request made last night by the Tennessee Justice Center's Gordon Bonnyman to have seven more days to consider compromises.

If the TennCare program is scrapped, up to 430,000 of the 1.3 million TennCare enrollees are likely to lose their health insurance coverage.

"This is a faint glimmer of hope, not a bright light," Bredesen said of Bonnyman's request. He added that there isn't a great chance that the ideological opposition to TennCare, as reformed recently by a plan approved by the General Assembly, would be resolved.

In the meantime, the program will start to be ended. If allowed to be completed, the dissolution process will take up to six months.

Bredesen cited prescriptions as the single largest problem. In addition to recently losing $100 million in federal funding, TennCare is now writing 700,000 prescriptions a week – roughly one prescription for each TennCare member every 13 days.

Bredesen has asked the courts and advocate Bonnyman for the state to be released from consent decrees. Bonnyman has to date rejected requests to waive the consent decrees due to his stated belief that healthcare, particularly for children, would be short-changed.

In response to questions after his prepared remarks, Bredesen acknowledged that a return to Medicaid would put financial pressures on medical providers in the state. He also said it was incorrect to state that returning to Medicaid would not save the state money. And he said that he expects CMS in Washington, which oversees Medicare and Medicaid, to sign off on the return to traditional Medicaid.

Senior writer Drew Ruble contributed to this article.