MYTH # 10:
“The Governor has only cut TennCare benefits to bring them in line with commercial insurance, and that won’t hurt anyone. Some able-bodied adults may have to assume more personal responsibility for their own health, but that’s only fair.”

REALITY

That is wishful thinking. Able-bodied adults don’t use many health services, so cutting them off would not have saved much money. Setting a quota on prescriptions for people that don’t use medicine does not hurt them, but it does not save the program any money, either.  The real money in TennCare is being spent to treat the sickest people. The great majority of TennCare expenditures go to very sick patients whose need for care is unquestioned: the sickest 15% of TennCare enrollees account for 75% of the program’s costs, and 4% of enrollees account for 43% of TennCare costs.1 Real savings can only be achieved by reducing the cost of their care.  There are clinically sound ways to reduce those costs. But kicking off the sickest people and setting arbitrary limits are not among them, and they certainly are not painless. 

 

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