On Monday, Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced a 10-step plan to expand healthcare to over 200,000 Virginians. The plan includes four emergency regulations and an executive order designed to extend healthcare options to veterans, children and families.
As governor, there is no greater responsibility than ensuring the health and safety of the citizens you serve. That is why I am so proud to stand here today and unveil A Healthy Virginia’ a plan that will improve the lives of more than 200,000 citizens throughout the Commonwealth, said Governor McAuliffe. Through my plan, I am taking action by authorizing 4 emergency regulations and issuing 1 executive order that will address urgent health needs and put us on a pathway toward Building a New Virginia Economy. However, these steps are just the beginning, and we must continue to press forward together to achieve better health for all of our citizens.
Gov. McAuliffe’s Plan, “A Healthy Virginia” is outlined as follows:
Step 1: Covering people with serious mental illness
This step includes the launching of the Governor’s Access Plan (GAP), which will provide medical and behavioral health care to approximately 20,000 uninsured Virginians with severe mental illnesses.
Step 2: Improve the coordination of care for adults and children who are already covered by Medicaid and have a serious mental illness
In this step, Gov. McAuliffe will authorize the Department of Medical Assistance Services to establish “health homes” for individuals with severe mental illness. Health homes are not physical spaces, but “are a model of care in which all of an individual’s primary, acute, behavioral, and long-term care services are coordinated and integrated,” according to a release from the Governor’s office.
Steps 3 & 4: Sign up more Virginians for the Federal Marketplace, Medicaid, and FAMIS
With a goal of increasing the number of Virginians enrolled for Medicaid and FAMIS, Gov. McAuliffe will help enroll 35,000 children in FAMIS and 160,000 in the federal marketplace for health insurance. Using $4.3 million in federal funds to communicate with Virginians about their coverage opportunities, Virginia has also applied for an additional $10 million to amplify outreach efforts.
Step 5: Open up FAMIS for eligible state workers to insure their children
In this step, Gov. Mcauliffe will order DMAS to issue an emergency regulation making FAMIS available to children of lower-income state workers.
Step 6: Provide dental benefits to pregnant women in Medicaid and FAMIS
45,000 pregnant women in Medicaid and FAMIS will receive comprehensive dental coverage in this step of the plan. The overall goals of this step are reducing pre-term births, emergency dental expenditures as well as the state’s cost of dental care for children.
Step 7: Launch an innovative new website to inform Virginians of their coverage options and help them enroll
This step will usher in an updated Cover Virginia website by November. The “new and improved” website will be more user-friendly and have all the information Virginia citizens need to apply for coverage through existing programs.
Step 8: Accelerating access to quality health care for our veterans
In partnership with the Veterans Health Administration, Secretary of Health and Human Resources Bill Hazel and Secretary of Veterans and Defense Affairs John Harvey, the plan will use part of the $10 billion in federal aid made available by the Obama administration to help veterans get health care outside the VA system if there are barriers to access.
Step 9: Take bold actions to reduce deaths from prescription drug and heroin abuse
The prescription drug and heroin abuse problem in Virginia has reached a crisis stage. This section of the plan will significantly reduce the number of drug-related deaths through the creation and actions of a Task Force to Combat Prescription Drug and Heroin Abuse.
Step 10: Aggressively pursue Federal grants that can bring new dollars into Virginia for health care
Gov. McAuliffe’s administration will actively pursue every federal grant available for “health care and innovation,” says the release. Recently, the state applied for $2.6 million in federal funding through the CMS State Innovation Model grant program, aimed to enact statewide healthcare reform.
