Health care task force will try to find a cure for our insurance woes
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By Rep. BRAD DEE
Guest commentary
There's a line in one of my favorite movies, "The Princess Bride," where Count Rugen says, "If you haven't got your health, then you haven't got anything."
If our health care system were a patient, we would describe it as suffering from: a rash of price increases, swollen deductibles, chronic lack of coverage and acute shortage of information. This diagnosis describes a patient who is in desperate need of treatment.
Too many people are without health care coverage, costs are increasing at unsustainable rates and far too many patients fail to receive proper care. Health costs are rising much more quickly than our median household incomes. In the period from 1996 to 2005, median household incomes in Utah grew by 15 percent, while family health insurance premiums grew by 109 percent. This trend is just not sustainable. By 2028, health insurance premiums will outgrow median household income.
More and more Utahns are ending up uninsured -- some 306,000, according to the last Health Status Survey. Clearly, our system is fatally flawed and needs serious reform before the system collapses. As Republican leadership, we don't believe the answer to our health care problems lies in a national government-sponsored single-payer system. Rather, we believe we can find solutions by providing a positive environment for public-private partnerships which are market-driven and provide for individual responsibility.
This legislative session a major health care task force has been proposed. Meaningful reform will take several years to implement, but this first step builds a framework based on individual accountability and market forces. This year we begin a six-step process that will lay the foundation for reform in future legislative sessions:
1. We must provide patients with information about the cost and quality of the care they receive. Armed with information, they can then act as savvy consumers to make health-care decisions based on value. Tools are being developed this session that will provide consumers, providers and insurers that information.
2. Behavior and lifestyles choices such as smoking, obesity and failure to receive immunizations increase health-care costs. We need to develop public policies that inform and provide incentives for the public to make healthy choices.
3. We must encourage every Utahn to enroll in our existing health-care programs, which are under capacity. Almost half of the uninsured qualify for Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) or the Utah Premium Partnership (UPP). CHIP, for example, has the capacity to cover 42,000 children; however, only 32,000 are currently enrolled.
4. The plan's multi-year framework is made up of four sub-elements. We must empower and fund the Governor's Office of Economic Development to develop and implement policies that enable Utahns to purchase insurance coverage with pre-tax dollars. We must find innovative insurance policies incorporating best clinical practices that are portable from job to job. The plan also would maximize pre-tax benefits, and move public employees into the new market as soon as feasible.
5. To build upon existing collaborative efforts, providers and insurers will be asked to contribute in several key ways. For example, by increasing the cutoff line for the definition of "uninsurable," we will reduce the amount of underwriting allowed in small group and individual markets. All the stakeholders must stay at the table for reform to truly take hold.
6. In order for these reforms to take effect, we need to provide an economic incentive. We have proposed a $14.1 million tax cut for health care. This would create a $750 credit per household that would enable families to start changing the way they buy and use health insurance.
This reform process won't be without some significant changes to the way we've evolved to view our health care system. We need to completely realign our thinking about health care, the way we access that care, and they way we pay for the care. It will be an interesting challenge as we seek to throw out the old rule book and begin again drafting new rules about health care in the 21st century. All stakeholders must fully engage in the task force process and beyond to ensure that we have a health care system that is as vibrant as the people it serves.
Dee, the Utah House of Representative's assistant majority whip, represents legislative District 11 (Ogden). He plans to write weekly during the legislative session.
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