The federal government is negotiating to cap spending on state-run high-risk pools, which provide subsidized health coverage for people rejected by private insurers because they're too sick. Administrators of Utah's program, federal HIP- Utah, met Monday with the governor's office and the state's insurance commissioner to consider how to respond to the federal proposal, which they say would shift risk for cost overruns to the state. "The [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] gave us a bit of a surprise," said Sally Burns, associate director of federal HIPUtah, which is administered by SelectHealth. "They have been allocating money to states to pay for claims but now want to cap costs."
