Health insurance for individuals in South Carolina is getting increasingly harder to find with quality benefits and reasonable premiums.  The new health care reform bill is hoping to fix this issue in South Carolina and across the nation.  Working against this type of reform is South Carolina officials who continue to fight against reform in the courts to stop implementation.  What’s interesting though, is that South Carolina is still accepting funds from the federal government to make health care work according to the article “South Carolina Fights Health Plan, Yet Takes Funds” by Stephen Largen on GoupState.com.

The US Department of Health and Human Services says that South Carolina has accepted $16.8 million in grants so far from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  In addition to this, the South Carolina State Treasurer’s Office has received over $27 million on behalf of the Budget and Control Board from health care reform.  It’s funded through the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program which is designed to help out with the financial burdens placed on those participating in the state health plan.

This acceptance of funds does not match up with their open opposition of the health care bill.  States such as Wisconsin are returning some of the money including $600,000 in grant funding for an outreach program initiated by Governor Scott Walker.  Louisiana returned $1 million received to help set up health care exchanges.  South Carolina is keeping money which would otherwise show support and a need for health care reform, but their words say otherwise.  There is still time to return some of the money and this would show a true opposition to the federal health care bill.  It’s possible some money has already been returned.