The Record
By Lindy Washburn

As opponents work to undo key provisions of the federal health reform law that passed last year, a progressive think-tank in New Jersey has released a report detailing the law’s anticipated benefits for working families.

It estimates that by the time the law is fully implemented — in 2019 — an additional 180,000 working parents will get insurance coverage, along with at least 6,000 more children.

“This new law will provide affordable, quality health insurance for most uninsured families in New Jersey,” said Ray Castro, senior policy analyst with New Jersey Policy Perspective, which prepared the report at the request of the Rutgers Center for Women and Work. “And it will expand insurance protections for many families that have insurance.”

Healthy families benefit the state’s economy, he said, by reducing the amount of sick time parents take, for example.

Most low- and moderate-income children already are eligible for subsidized health coverage, but extending coverage to their parents has been an on-again, off-again proposition in New Jersey. The most recent change in parents’ eligibility standards for New Jersey FamilyCare — from 200 percent of the federal poverty limit to 133 percent — caused 39,000 parents to lose health insurance. In addition, 8,000 legal immigrants who have lived in the United States less than five years also were removed from the program.

One of the parents who lost coverage when stricter income standards were imposed was Yolanda Quintero of North Bergen.

“Our family doesn’t qualify anymore, so now we can’t afford insurance,” she said. Therapy for one of her two children was suspended, and her husband stopped taking prescribed prostate medication.

“It’s a very difficult time for working families like mine,” she said through a translator.

Stability in the criteria or tax credits for health insurance will enable more parents to enroll. Once they are in, Castro said, previous experience has shown that many of the estimated 200,000 children who are eligible but uninsured will get coverage.

An additional $175 million in federal matching funds is also expected to flow to the state, as the result of better federal funding for the program.