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State Representative Joyce Peppin
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-7806
For more information contact: Austin Bleess 651-296-5529
NEWS COLUMN
GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH CARE – ARE WE HEADED IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION?
By Joyce Peppin
State Representative, District 32A
A few years ago, when discussing the high cost of health care, satirist PJ O’Rourke said, “If you think health care is expensive now…wait until it’s free.”
There has been much talk in recent years regarding passing legislation requiring universal health care coverage for all Minnesotans. The goal of many is to move Minnesota’s insured rate from 93 percent to 98 percent or higher. While a great goal, it is not as simple as it might seem, and it comes with a hefty price tag.
To put things in perspective, it is important to note that Minnesota is widely regarded as having one of the most generous taxpayer-funded health care systems in the nation. We provide government health coverage to people at a higher income level than nearly every other state and we have the fewest uninsured residents of any state in the nation.
Further, of the estimated 374,000 without coverage, more than 200,000 are already eligible for existing taxpayer subsidized health care programs (according to the 2007 Minnesota Department of Health “Health Insurance in Minnesota” report). Another 85,000 are illegal residents who, while not entitled to full health benefits, are eligible for taxpayer funded emergency and pregnancy care. An estimated 80,000 make above 300 percent of the federal poverty guidelines (or $60,000 for a family of four) who are not insured. Another significant group is eligible for employer insurance, yet chooses not to enroll.
While Minnesota is doing an exemplary job, we can do better. The legislature was wise in creating the Health Care Access Commission, which was charged with reforming health care to make it more efficient, affordable and accessible. The Commission worked diligently last fall to issue a report that has been praised for offering health care reform that will bring down costs while moving toward universal coverage. The problem is the Commission strictly looked to government solutions and did not seek any type of consumer-based reforms which hold far greater promise to transform the system.
The Commission’s report resulted in legislation which greatly expands government-run health care, but provides little in the way of health care cost reform. The bill pushes us toward a government-run, taxpayer-financed health care system, and in some instances even reverses cost reform measures that have been instituted in recent years.
When all is said and done, the legislation simply throws more money at the problem with taxpayer subsidized program expansion and rationed care that will cost us an additional $1.26 billion in spending during a four year period. Some troubling features of the bill include:
-- Relaxing asset verification and allowing an extension of taxpayer-supported coverage even if the enrollee fails to provide required income information;
-- Creating yet another state welfare subsidy payment program to reimburse health care costs for middle income Minnesotans (a family of four earning $85,000 would be eligible for this new subsidy program);
-- Imposing a universal coverage mandate that would require all Minnesotan’s to carry health insurance (with no details as to how this would be accomplished).
Instead of reducing health care costs, this legislation spends more taxpayer dollars with little benefit and dubious results. It is laudable to provide health care coverage to more Minnesotans. But simply moving more people to government programs and eroding the private insurance market is not reform. It is a move toward rationed care, government dependency and massive, unsustainable government spending.
Business groups, who have the most at stake in improving our health care system, have forwarded a number of principles which should be a part of any reform effort. They include:
--Easy access to price and quality information via “transparency” and on-line posting of such data;
--Repealing legislation that mandates certain medical goods and services forced to be included in insurance policies;
--Reducing, reforming, and in some cases, eliminating the paper trail of medical records that requires millions of hours of clerical and staff time to maintain and preserve.
--Incentivizing consumers through lower premiums if they meet health management goals for weight control, blood pressure, lower cholesterol, smoking cessation and the like.
Real reform can be accomplished, but it must include providing open access to health care services, more patient empowerment and choice. It must do more than simply “encourage” competition, it must demand it. And, above all else, let’s heed the advice of Mr. O’Rourke and avoid the high cost and inefficiencies of “free,” government-run health care.
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