There's criticism about the fees paid by those helping the uninsured get coverage under health reform.
Some say they create barriers, but state officials say over a hundred people have paid for a required exam taken by navigators and certified application counselors.
Brad Gingras runs the Concentrated Employment Program, a workforce development agency in northwest Wisconsin. That agency got a federal navigator grant to help people sign up for private health insurance on what's known as the exchange. Gingras says they didn't expect their six navigators would have to pay $39 for a background check; $150 for online training course and $75 for an exam.
Gingras says that the exam location also posed a problem. “We are in very rural northwest Wisconsin,” he says. “Pretty much anywhere we need to go is a pretty far drive.”
Gingras says their funding is limited. Their agency and two others are sharing $285,000 of a federal navigator grant to serve 27 counties. The fees are an additional expense. “The reality is if we want to be successful in our grant, these are costs we have to incur.”
The state fees are creating a stir among those who don't have to pay them. Pamela Midbon fired off a letter to her local newspaper in Madison when she heard about what navigators and certified application counselors have to pay.
“I thought it was so wrong for volunteers to have to pay a number of fees in order to help people,” says Midbon.
She says she never paid any fees when she volunteered to be a state tax preparer under a program run by AARP and the state revenue department.
Officials from the state insurance office say 135 people have taken and passed the required $75 exam.
