Bredesen meets with TennCare protestors

Bredesen spent 40 minutes with the protesters, telling them he has spent two years trying to figure out how to fix the $8.7 billion TennCare program and the state must “go through some fire” to reach an affordable solution.

“I’m doing the best job I know how to step up and deal with it,” Bredesen told the group.

The group has been occupying the governor’s office since Monday, staying overnight under the watch of state troopers.

One wheelchair-bound enrollee on a ventilator came into the meeting with the understanding he was one of the 226,000 to 323,000 people scheduled to be eliminated from the program.

He left with an assurance from Bredesen that the state recently found a way to insure that roughly 100 such people will get to keep private-duty nurses and live on their own.

“I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping me and restoring my private duty nursing,” Nashville resident Glen Barnhill told Bredesen. “But even with that I stand by my group.”

The protesters said the meeting with the governor wasn’t enough. They promised to camp out in the reception area of his office day and night until he stops all plans to cut anyone from TennCare or reduce any benefits.

“We’re staying,” said Randy Alexander, a protester and organizer from Memphis. “Our demands have not been met. He tried to pick us apart and divide and conquer us.”

Alexander told the governor the state needs to raise cigarette taxes and press Congress and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist for more money to keep the TennCare program intact.

The state mailed the first 1,300 termination letters Tuesday. As many as 200,000 could be mailed in the coming weeks out of more than 1 million enrollees.

Bredesen said extreme cases like Barnhill’s can be found and fixed before the disenrollments if advocates stop shouting demands.

“If people are constructive about it, we have a lot of ability to work through some rough spots,” he said.

The governor, a former health care executive who campaigned in 2002 on his ability to better manage TennCare, has been planning the cuts for months, pushed the reform package through the Legislature and received much of the clearance he needs from federal courts.

But Bredesen said there is no way to avoid the vast majority of the cuts and benefit reductions. TennCare, like many Medicaid programs, has seen double-digit inflation in recent years.

“Like it or not, budgets or money are a real issue,” he told the protesters. “And you could not find someone who believes more strongly than I do that every U.S. citizen deserves access to basic health care.”

Bredesen also is trying to limit prescription drug coverage and other benefits. He has received federal approval for much of the plan and is waiting for the outcome of a federal court case next week to finalize the benefit caps.

Bredesen has become an outspoken advocate for reform of the Medicaid system, saying in the Democrats’ national radio address earlier this month that the program needs to be scrapped and reshaped.

About half-a-dozen protesters will be allowed to camp out in the governor’s reception area overnight. A larger group was in the hallway leading to the office throughout the day.

“It is peoples’ lives we are talking about,” said Lisa Abell, one of the protesters. “Health care is a right, not a privilege.”