The Des Moines Register this week reported that about 100 ADAP clients in the state were denied their only means of health care coverage by a state agency that’s supposed to be insuring people in a “high-risk” pool.

According to the paper, the state was given $35 million in bridge funding from the Obama administration to establish a state insurance program for people unable to get insurance on the market due to being considered “high-risk” applicants. The agency however refuses to accept “third party” payments, leaving one-third of the state’s ADAP enrollees without any coverage at all.

Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines said in a public hearing with the insurance board’s executive director, Cecil Byerk that “There’s no doubt in my mind that these people with HIV are an easy group to say ‘no’ to because they are the group that is continually discriminated against in society.”

The paper reported that “Bykerk told lawmakers he is concerned about the costs of covering more people. Yet he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars advertising to supposedly attract more enrollees.”

Lawmakers are considering whether to fire the administrators, or scrap the program. We hope they keep the program, insure the ADAP enrollees, and hand out some pink slips.

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