America's health insurance industry's plans for our future
America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP)
March 9, 2004
America’s Health Insurance Plans Chart a Course for Improving Quality, Access and Affordability
The recently merged American Association of Health Plans (AAHP) and Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA) today unveiled a new name… America
’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP).
(Co-Chairman Michael) Abbott, who is President and CEO of American Republic
Insurance Company, stated, “Our mission is clear: We will advocate for a legislative and regulatory environment that enables our members to help create a health care system that meets the needs of all stakeholders - consumers, employers and public purchasers. Our goal is to help make access to high-quality, affordable health care a reality for all Americans.”
Board of Directors Statement
A Commitment to Improve Health Care Quality, Access, and Affordability
March 2004
WE BELIEVE that the times call for the nation to make a renewed commitment to meet the needs and expectations of health care consumers regardless of health, socioeconomic status, location or other circumstances.
OPTIONS FOR GIVING ALL AMERICANS ACCESS
(Comments are by Don McCanne.)
- Provide access to health care coverage for lower-income individuals and
families through tax credits
Comment: Proposed tax credits are not adequate to make health plans
affordable for low-income individuals.
- Encourage younger Americans to seek and maintain health coverage
Comment: The AHIP proposal calls for tax-advantaged health spending accounts
which would effectively remove this relatively healthy sector from the insurance risk pools, driving up costs for those with greater needs who remain in the traditional plans.
- Intensify efforts to cover adults and children who are eligible for but not enrolled in Medicaid and SCHIP
Comment: Since this sector does not have enough resources to pay the costly
health plan administrative expenses, AHIP shifts this responsibility from their plans to administratively efficient public programs funded by taxpayers.
- Create “high-risk” purchasing pools to cover uninsured individuals with
especially high health costs.
Comment: One of the great advantages of insurance is that high-risk individuals would have their costs diluted in a large risk pool. AHIP proposes to eliminate these individuals from their plans and have their high-cost care funded by federal and state taxpayers. Excluding those who have greater health care needs from health insurance plans should make us question the need for any involvement by the private health insurance plans.
- Provide bridge loans to help middle-income workers maintain their coverage when they become unemployed
Comment: Although this proposal increases the risk of personal bankruptcy for the unemployed, it would help to preserve this market for the health plans. The unemployed have enough financial problems without piling on more debt.
- Provide access through public programs for Americans living below
poverty
Comment: This perpetuates the under-funded, welfare-model Medicaid-type approach and places the responsibility for funding on the taxpayers rather
than the health plans.
- Provide access for public financing of private health coverage for
Americans living near poverty
Comment: AHIP still wants to keep the health plan market for employed, lower-income individuals, but they want government tax funds to subsidize this market.
- Use tax incentives to promote broader coverage among higher-income workers without insurance
Comment: Taxpayer subsidization of health care costs increases as income increases with these tax incentives. Health care welfare disproportionately
benefiting the wealthy is not rational policy.
http://www.aahp.org/Template.cfm?Section=Home&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=11209
(The Board of Directors Statement may be accessed by clicking on the link at the bottom of the AHIP release.)
Final comment: It seems that the “renewed commitment” and “new direction”
of AHIP would ensure the health of America’s health insurance plans long into the future. But what about patients? The Board of Directors Statement includes a chart that shows that their proposals will provide access to all of the 43 million uninsured. Unfortunately, AHIP’s “new commitment” totally lacks credibility as innumerable studies have confirmed that these proposals cannot possibly meet that goal.
AHIP’s proposals are designed to generously fund their industry’s own administrative services, but when it comes to paying for health care, they turn to the government and the taxpayers.
If this is the best that America’s Health Insurance Plans can come up with, then we clearly need a national, government solution.