Smarter health coverage for Michigan
In a remarkable yearlong, bipartisan negotiation, a Democratic state representative and a Republican state senator have produced a framework for shoring up Michigan's individual health insurance market. Even with national health insurance reform looming, the Legislature needs to see their initiative through.
The original article in the Detroit Free Press can be seen here.
In a remarkable yearlong, bipartisan negotiation, a Democratic state representative and a Republican state senator have produced a framework for shoring up Michigan's individual health insurance market. Even with national health insurance reform looming, the Legislature needs to see their initiative through.
The package of bills comes from Rep. Marc Corriveau, D-Northville, and Sen. Tom George, R-Portage. They aim to keep the individual market for health insurance viable, competitive and fair.
Blue Cross Blue Shield, as Michigan's insurer of last resort, has a mandate to accept all applicants for individual health insurance. But that means it generally gets saddled with the sickest customers and those with pre-existing conditions -- the people most likely to be dumped or rejected by other companies -- and hence needs to charge higher rates to survive. This trend, known as adverse selection, is unsustainable.
Corriveau and George address the problem by developing a catastrophic coverage pool for use by all insurance companies and by requiring all insurers to accept a share of potentially high- risk customers in proportion to the overall amount of business they do in the state. This should go a long way to giving individual insurance customers more choices while also implementing, for Michigan, the high-risk pooling that is an early part of national reform.
George, who is a doctor, has put a high priority on using rates as tools to persuade Michiganders to become healthier by quitting smoking, maintaining appropriate weight, and complying with medical instructions and health screenings.
There are several other important aspects to the bills, including subsidies for working families to buy insurance. Those subsidies would be funded with a Blue Cross payment equivalent to the tax break it gets from the state as a not-for-profit organization. This new effort to expand insurance coverage is welcome.
Legislative committees still need to go over the entire plan carefully to make sure it levels the playing field in the way it's designed to and retains sufficient oversight of the industry. C orriveau and George already know some changes will be needed to make sure their plan meshes with the requirements of federal health care reform, which passed Congress just as they were finishing up.
But, as a pair, they have greatly improved on what started as rushed, lame duck legislation in 2008 -- and along the way shown that conscientious lawmakers can in fact work through partisan differences. Their colleagues need to respect that by keeping the bills on track for passage.
Posted: 4/12/2010