New Hampshire uses market reform to cover the healthy
The Union Leader
August 18, 2004
State health insurance ‘reform’ is making matters worse
By Burt Cohen
I know I’m not the only one whose health insurance premium has long since surpassed my mortgage. This is crazy.
But hang on to your seat. Thanks to a bill sponsored by Sen. Russell Prescott, R-Kingston, it’s going to get much worse. Prescott’s infamous Senate Bill 110, with Gov. Craig Benson’s active support, became law despite overwhelming evidence it would do great harm.
The simple premise of SB 110 was that, by allowing market forces free rein,more health insurance companies would be drawn to New Hampshire, and health insurance costs would drop. My goodness, it didn’t turn out that way.The actual results are that insurance will now be cheaper for the young and healthy (who generally don’t even buy health insurance), but more expensive for the old and sick. Premiums are skyrocketing from 25 percent to 75 percent, or more, for small businesses and families across New Hampshire.
It was obvious at the time that SB 110 was about cherry picking. It enables insurance companies to make more money by being more selective in who they underwrite. They can now charge higher rates for small groups according to
geographic region, as well as age or health.
The public good is served when the healthy help pay the costs of caring for the sick. And it’s not like we have a choice in getting sick. While it is certainly fair to have bad drivers pay more for insurance, is it fair to charge the sick more for their unchosen predicament? Yet that’s exactly how SB 110 works.
It’s hard to imagine, but thanks to Sen. Prescott’s bill, today our New Hampshire government is prying deep into private personal information.You must list every health problem, and every medication taken by anyone in your family during the past five years. So here we have it: The state of New Hampshire, through SB 110, is now serving the interests of the health insurance industry against the interests of the citizens.
Yes, we have to do something. More and more health care providers are coming to the conclusion that it’s time to create a national solution,something like an expanded Medicare system.
http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showfast.html?article=42473
New Hampshire’s Chapter 420-G: Portability, Availability, and Renewability of Health Coverage:
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/rsa/html/indexes/420-G.html
Comment: The splitting of insurance coverage into high risk and low risk pools is not some theoretical policy proposal by advocates of “consumer directed” health coverage. It is already here. Health coverage is being made affordable for the larger sector of our population that is relatively healthy. Those with higher health care needs are being shoved into unaffordable high cost pools.
We desperately need to establish one single universal risk pool that spreads the costs equitably. Is this concept really so complex that we should remain frozen in inaction?