WellPoint Inc., the nation's largest health insurer, has proposed public and private steps to reduce the number of Americans who lack health insurance. It will coordinate the plan from its Louisville office.

Indianapolis-based WellPoint is the parent company of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kentucky, the state's largest health insurer. It operates in 14 states.

The plan that WellPoint and Anthem unveiled yesterday:

Urges the expansion of states' health-insurance programs to more people, especially children, perhaps through increased cigarette taxes.

Promises to roll out new health plans aimed at target populations of uninsured people, such as young adults, early retirees and Hispanics.

Advocates public-private partnerships to provide coverage for people who don't qualify for government insurance -- for example, high-risk pools like Kentucky Access, a state program that uses Anthem's network of care providers.

WellPoint will identify partnerships that are working in one state and try to get other states to adopt them, said Jude Thompson, who will direct the plan from Louisville.

Thompson, WellPoint senior vice president of under-65 individual health insurance, until recently was president of Anthem's operations in Kentucky.

Extending health coverage to many of the 46 million Americans who lack it "will take a multifaceted solution," he said.

WellPoint pledged $30 million over three years to support local health-access initiatives around the country -- such as Surgery on Sunday, in which Kentucky surgeons operate for free on uninsured patients.

WellPoint will lobby for states to expand their health-insurance programs for the poor, and offer management help or its networks of health-care providers toward those efforts.

It will urge states to cover children in families that earn up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level -- $60,000 for a family of four, well above Kentucky's Medicaid ceiling.

The plan also urges states to extend coverage to parents in families that earn up to 200 percent of the poverty level and for childless adults who earn up to about $10,000.

A key Kentucky legislator reacted to those proposals skeptically.

"It sounds to me like the wolf giving the chicken an invitation to step out of the coop," said Rep. Tom Burch, D-Louisville, chairman of the House Health and Welfare Committee.

He said Anthem may be hoping to be hired to run state programs that expand. Anthem manages the Medicaid programs of 14 states, including Indiana.

Burch said he wants to extend health insurance to everyone, but favors doing it through a national health plan.

Still, he said there are ways that Anthem and state government could jointly extend coverage to more people -- for example, if Anthem devised a low-cost plan and the state paid part of the premiums for people who couldn't afford them.

Thompson said Anthem hasn't discussed its plan with Kentucky legislators or state officials and isn't seeking action in this year's General Assembly session. The plan is long-range in nature, he said.

The company isn't recommending how much cigarette taxes should be increased in various states to pay for expanded coverage.

WellPoint also is more aggressively trying to pitch plans to people who can afford to buy coverage but don't.

For example, within a year it plans to launch its Tonik individual plans, marketed to young people, in Kentucky and Indiana. Tonik uses nontraditional approaches, such as naming its three plans "thrill seeker," "part-time daredevil" and "calculated risk taker."

Seventy percent of people who bought Tonik plans in California were not previously insured, Thompson said.

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By Patrick Howington

phowington@courier-journal.com

The Courier-Journal

Reporter Patrick Howington can be reached at (502) 582-4229.

Copyright 2005 The Courier-Journal.