Health care reform still possible, but government-run proposal gains committee approval

(June 1, 2007) As proposals to bring about real health care reform await action in the legislature, the movement to adopt a high-cost and unsustainable government-run, single-payer system was given a breath of life by the Appropriations Committee this week when it approved HB-7314.

In addition to HB-7314 (the last remaining single-payer vehicle), still in the legislative mix this session is a bill to create a statewide health insurance purchasing pool (HB-7320).  This bill would impose a mandatory state-run system of health insurance on all Connecticut cities and towns and would become the platform from which the state could then launch an all-out single payer system in the future. 

True reform
Neither of these measures will move the state closer to true health care reform that will improve quality, reduce costs and increase access to health insurance. Instead, the proposals are merely misguided efforts to find different ways to pay for health care.

Some measures still alive in the legislature do contain components of true health care reform – and if enacted, would make significant improvements to health care in Connecticut.

For example, HB-6652 takes a market-based approach toward reforming Connecticut’s health care system by strengthening the current system. 

Among other things, HB-6652 focuses considerably on promoting the use of electronic medical records, increasing provider reimbursement levels, promoting healthier lifestyles and increasing the availability of affordable health insurance to Connecticut’s residents and small employers. 

These positive reform efforts can make significant inroads to increasing health care access by reducing costs and improving quality.

Pooling no cure-all
Health insurance pooling systems potentially might provide some short-term benefits to certain groups but they operate under the erroneous presumption that the larger the pool the lower the cost. 

In fact, there are no significant advantages to large purchasing pools — once a pool attains a certain size (typically in the hundreds) the pricing advantage of the pool is reached. Very large employers with thousands of pooled employees –such as General Motors — still struggle with high health care costs.

Connecticut’s MEHIP program is another large purchasing pool, but has not been able to effectively reduce costs for its participants.

In addition, efforts are underway that will allow a state-run purchasing pool to operate completely outside of Connecticut’s insurance laws so that it will not have to comply with such beneficial and protective requirements as minimum financial reserves. Ultimately, this will leave Connecticut taxpayers as the guarantors of the risk inherent in this pool.

And all of this comes with the prospect of losing tens of thousands of Connecticut insurance jobs in the process, placing our state’s precarious economic recovery in an even more tenuous position.

Proposals such as HB-7314 and HB-7320 will make the health care problem in Connecticut worse, not fix it. For more information, contact CBIA’s Eric George at 860-244-1921 or georgee@cbia.com.

CBIA Action Center

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