More People Will Be Eligible For Insure Oklahoma

Associated Press

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- More businesses and some college students will be eligible for the Oklahoma Health Care Authority's Insure Oklahoma program.

The state program helps small businesses with 50 or fewer employees provide health insurance for workers, who also pay a portion of costs.

The program will be expanded to include businesses with up to 99 employees and full-time college students ages 19 to 22 with household incomes of up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level.

State lawmakers passed a bill two years ago to expand eligibility to businesses with 250 or fewer employees, and to full-time college students.

But the authority had to wait for federal approval.

Cindy Roberts is director of program integrity and planning. She says state officials received consent to expand the program last week and the state plans to start enrolling college students and more businesses around March 1st.

Roberts says the number of college students who can be served is limited to 3,000.