Health Savings Account Blog

The program allows some Richland County Medicaid recipients $2,500 to cover deductibles for doctor's office visits and other medical care. It also provides children with $1,000 accounts, said Jeff Stensland, state Department of Health and Human Services spokesman.

If money is left in the Health Savings Account at the end of the year, up to 75 percent of it can be used for other health expenses, education or job training, or rolled over to the next year, Stensland said.

However, if the account is exhausted, Medicaid recipients have to pay 10 percent of their health care costs. However, there is a safeguard where if costs reach a higher threshold, recipients are again fully covered by the typical Medicaid program, Stensland said.

Stensland said the pilot program will be limited to 1,000 people during the next five years. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will review the program and could allow it to be expanded statewide, Stensland said.

A spokesman for the federal agency did not immediately respond to a telephone message.

Also, the Republican governor's office said the federal agency approved a statewide program that allows Medicaid recipients to enroll in an insurance program similar to the one used by state workers and retirees. The Medicaid recipients will get some expanded coverage, such as annual physicals and health screenings, Stensland said.

They will also get regular updates on how much their health care costs. "We have no idea what the participation will be," Stensland said.

Both programs are expected to be operating by the end of the year.

News of the programs came as the state's Health and Human Services Department was being criticized about a new transportation contract for Medicaid.

On Monday night, many people spoke out at a public hearing in Greenville against the new service, saying it was untimely and left the elderly and disabled without rides in some cases.

The agency said it changed the transportation system to improve accountability and efficiency after the previous system of contracting with county agencies brought high costs, fraud and abuse.

Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer said part of the problem was the head of governor's Cabinet agency, one of the South Carolina's largest, left in April. An interim replacement was named when former director Robbie Kerr left the agency, but Susan Bowling will leave the department in a couple of weeks, too.

"I respectfully renew my request that you act with dispatch to name a director of the Department of Health and Human Services," Bauer wrote Sanford on Tuesday. "That vacancy, now in its fourth month, has resulted in a public perception that no one is responsible or accountable for decisions by this $4 billion agency that is placing senior citizens and people with disabilities in danger."

"The lieutenant governor needs to get his facts right," Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer said.

Kerr has been gone for two and a half months, not four, and the acting director is still there, Sawyer said.

The letter, delivered to reporters before Bauer's concerns had been brought to the agency, speaks more to Bauer's political motivations than his concern about transportation contracts, Sawyer said.

Learn more about Health Savings Accounts at: http://www.health--savings--accounts.com