Tennessee has federal permission to expand and revise its Medicaid program to hold down costs and offer health coverage for people without insurance.
The five-year demonstration project will steer Tennessee's 1 million Medicaid recipients into managed care programs such as health maintenance organizations, along with up to 500,000 of the uninsured.Those with incomes above the poverty line will have to pay premiums, deductibles and copayments on a sliding scale.
But federal officials set conditions on the Medicaid waivers, including an agreement limiting how much Washington will have to kick in for the $2.8 billion TennCare program.
Bruce C. Vladeck, the head of the Health Care Financing Administration, said, "To help protect the right of recipients to choose their own health care providers, Tennessee will initiate a new enrollment process for the uninsured and a re-enrollment process for Medicaid recipients."