Utah's health insurance blues
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hile it's sure to be dismissed as socialism or "Hillarycare" in some Utah circles, we hope a new plan for providing health insurance to all Utahns gets a fair hearing in the months ahead.
As reported by our own Charles Trentelman recently, the Utah Health Policy Project, a nonprofit that studies health care in Utah, says it's landed on an idea for insuring every last citizen of the Beehive State -- without spending any more money. The UHPP's proposal hinges on a 2003 study conducted by the New England Journal of Medicine that found we Utahns spend about $1.5 billion on health care that doesn't actually go toward health care. The $1.5 billion is gobbled up in paying for hospital, health insurance and doctor's office bureaucracy -- billing, approvals, collections, etc.
Another word for all that: overhead.
The UHPP's proposal, called The Utah Health Cooperative, would capture all that money by doing away with private health insurance companies altogether. In their place would be a single Utah health-care cooperative that would better serve the needs of business -- including Utah's small businesses which can't afford to help pay for health insurance for their employees.
The goal would be that the 400,000 Utahns who are now uninsured would be covered.
Understand, Utah is in the midst of a health-insurance crisis. As Trentelman reported, health insurance premiums paid by Utah workers shot up 63 percent, on average, between 2000 and 2004. That's double the national average, and five times the rate of Utahns' wage increases. It's no surprise, then, that last year Utah's growth in the number of people who are without insurance is increasing at seven times the national average. (See The Utah Health Cooperative's proposal on the Web at www.healthpolicyproject.org/Publications_files/UHC.pdf.)
We're falling behind, and fast. Currently, 16.6 percent of Utahns are uninsured -- up from 11.5 percent in 1994. And in case you assume otherwise, 47 percent of those who are uninsured work full-time jobs; another 24 percent work part-time.
Another thing that you should know about The Utah Health Cooperative is that few people believe it has a hope of becoming a reality -- at least as a comprehensive package of reforms. The for-profit health care industry is opposed to it, and even the nonprofit hospitals and insurance companies are taking a noncommittal position. As it stands, those interest groups hold powerful sway at Utah's Capitol, and would be able to torpedo reforms they don't like.
Still, that does not mean parts of The Utah Health Cooperative could not be implemented. As we noted previously, Utah finds itself in a terrible situation with a population that increasingly finds insurance coverage too expensive, employers who are cutting back on insurance benefits and individuals who -- absent coverage -- delay medical care until they are too seriously ill to be helped. It's a slow-motion tragedy.
And it is precisely a topic that our lawmakers and governor should be tackling. We urge them to huddle with knowledgeable people from all points of view to find solutions to this growing problem in Utah. Literally, the health of our state hangs in the balance.
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