NASHVILLE -- The Tennessee Justice Center, a nonprofit law firm providing free legal services to people in need, is going on a statewide informational tour this summer about the impacts of enacting versus not enacting Gov. Bill Haslam's alternative Medicaid expansion plan.
Insure Tennessee information tour
* June 23: Chattanooga * June 29: Huntingdon * June 30: Brownsville * July 13: Gallatin * July 14: Centerville * July 16: Shelbyville * Aug. 3: Knoxville * Aug. 6: Kingsport * Aug. 11: Morristown * Aug. 25: Memphis (Meeting times and locations to be announced)
The General Assembly declined to approve Haslam's Insure Tennessee plan before adjourning in April. Haslam says he still wants it enacted and Democrats have pushed him for a special legislative session to consider it, but the governor and Republican legislative leaders say that's unlikely.
The Justice Center's tour will collect information for a detailed report later this year on the ramifications both of approving and not approving Insure Tennessee, particularly on residents' health and on local economies.
The center's staff of lawyers and volunteers will travel to 10 cities from June 23 in Chattanooga through Aug. 25 in Memphis, holding public meetings at times and locations to be announced later. In addition to explaining details of Insure Tennessee and the "coverage gap" the plan seeks to close, each stop will gather information on those in the coverage gap, people who work at or depend on hospitals at risk of closing for their livelihoods, and those who depend on those hospitals for care.
The Tennessee Justice Center says at least 50 mostly rural hospitals are in danger of closing without the infusion of new federal money through Insure Tennessee, which would expand insurance to up to 280,000 uninsured state residents.
Most of them fall in the "coverage gap" -- they don't qualify for TennCare and don't make enough income to get subsidies for private insurance through the Affordable Care Act. The justice center says that includes working families, students and more than 24,000 military veterans.
"We've heard lawmakers who are either opposed to or have not taken a position on Insure Tennessee say they need more information about the plan's impact. Our goal is to meet Tennesseans in their communities and hear from them firsthand," Executive Director Michele Johnson said.
"We want to collect real stories about access to health care, concerns about vulnerable hospitals and the impact it is having on local economies. Refusing a health care plan that won't cost the state a thing is already costing communities dearly and we expect the data will comprehensively document this fact."
Johnson said there's widespread confusion about the coverage gap and what Insure Tennessee does.
"I think it's just the nature of the complexity of our health care system: people assume that if you have cancer and it's treatable and you're low income, you're covered, but that's just not true unless you're a child, or pregnant or the parent of young children. One purpose of the tour is to make sure people know who's not covered.
"And if these hospitals close, the privately insured people who have need for a hospital -- either they're pregnant or have a chronic illness or they have a sudden heart attack -- we need to know about them and they need to know that hospitals are at risk of closing."
Contact Richard Locker at richard.locker@knoxnews.com or 615-255-4923.