State devises new health coverage for legal immigrants

Coverage is expected to start for some patients Oct. 1, with all 31,000 legal immigrants covered by Dec. 1, said Dr. JudyAnn Bigby, the Patrick administration's secretary of health and human services. The gap between the end of coverage today and the resumption in October reflects the time necessary for the new network to be organized, Patrick said, and is not being done to save money.

Patrick and his lieutenants acknowledged that the care provided under the new arrangement will not be as comprehensive as services offered to other needy residents under the subsidized Commonwealth Care program, the centerpiece of the state's health care overhaul 2006. The new plan will cover primary care and generic medications, for example, and co-payments for those services will be comparable to Commonwealth Care, Bigby said. But dental, hospice, and skilled nursing care will not be included.

"We tried to make sure we were preserving coverage for the services historically this population has used," Patrick said.

Bigby said that during September, the legal immigrants will be able to get emergency care through the state's safety net program for impoverished patients; some of them, she said, may be eligible for MassHealth, the insurance program for the poor that is underwritten by the federal and state governments.

The Legislature cut Commonwealth Care funding for the legal immigrants as a cost-saving measure necessitated by the state's budget crisis.