By Juan E. Gastelum
Kaiser Health News, July 6, 2011
Utah’s exchange is one of only two operating in the country; Massachusetts has the other. Utah’s approach has been called the conservative “bookend” of the two because it favors a free-market in which multiple insurers compete with minimal intervention from the state.
(Utah), which had experimented with public programs to expand coverage to low-income adults, created its exchange in 2007 through state legislation signed by former Gov. John Huntsman, a Republican who is now seeking the party’s nomination for president. The exchange was designed to insure small business employees, who make up the majority of Utah’s workers. It launched to a limited group in 2009, and then opened to all small employers at the start of this year. It now provides coverage for about 3,583 people working for 139 employer groups.
Comment:
By Don McCanne, MD
Utah’s state health insurance exchange is now in full operation. It is a very loosely regulated system organized as what they call a “defined contribution market.” It is designed to cater especially to small businesses which include the majority of Utah’s workers. How successful has this program been?
Currently 3,583 people have been insured through the exchange. With a population of 2.9 million people, that amounts to a mere 0.12 percent who are covered by through the exchange. Though Utah does not yet have a mandate to have insurance coverage, it still raises the question, if states build insurance exchanges, will people come?
