Last August, Thrive Allen County was awarded an $11.9 million grant to fund a statewide Navigator program over the next five years, designed to enroll otherwise uninsured residents into the Affordable Care Act health insurance program.
“It was, at the moment, Thrive’s most stable and longest-term funding, which created stability,” Thrive CEO Lisse Regehr said. “It allowed us, for the first time ever, to look and plan five years down the road.”
For non-profits existing primarily on grants, such a concept is virtually unheard of.
But a lot can change in six months.
Thrive was notified Feb. 14 that the grant from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will be sliced by 90% starting next year.
Now, Thrive, which was set to receive $2 million next year of the $97 million announced for the Navigator grantee organizations, will be among the 56 organizations vying for $10 million across the country.
What that means is, barring any changes between now and August, when this year’s grant funds run out, Thrive will likely scale back dramatically its Navigator network statewide through the Thrive Kansas umbrella.
Regehr declined to estimate how many people who work as Navigators will be laid off.
“A lot can happen between now and then,” she said. ‘We are still working very diligently to try and ensure Kansas still gets some of this funding. Thrive’s mission, one of the things we’ve worked on at Thrive, is if there are dollars that can go anywhere, we want them here in our community.
“That creates better health outcomes and better economic outcomes for our community,” she continued. “We’re gonna continue to advocate for this program.
“We’ve met our goals every year, and exceeded them every year,” she said. “We’ve been asked to work with other grantees every year to help them be as successful as we’ve been. I know I can stand here and be very proud of the work we’ve done.”
THE NAVIGATOR program helps residents sign up for The Marketplace, the federal government’s health insurance program.
Since its inception in 2013, the federal program has reduced the number of uninsured Americans by more than 10%, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
A CMS news release on Feb. 14 noted nationwide that Navigators enrolled 92,000 consumers in 2024, or .6 percent of plan selections through Federally Facilitated Exchanges (FFEs).
Thrive Navigators enrolled 1,445 consumers, plus placed another 800 into Medicaid/Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and provided health insurance and literacy services for another 3,700 clients, and referred another 500 to other health insurance providers.
But Regher notes a couple of pieces of context must also be examined.
