Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Employers, employees and the government would share premium costs.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Advocates for reducing Ohio's high health-care costs are floating a plan to state policymakers that would ask businesses, workers and government to share the rising cost of insurance.
Col Owens, senior attorney for the Legal Aid Society of Greater Cincinnati, said Tuesday that the program called Ohio Healthy Workers would rely on a sliding public-private payment scale aimed at enticing small businesses and self-employed bosses to provide insurance -- and making it affordable enough for employees to buy.
The proposal is modeled on aspects of recent health-care initiatives in states including Massachusetts, Maine, Illinois and New Mexico, but rejects the idea of universal health care because Ohio's GOP-led Legislature has opposed expanding public subsidies, Owens said.
Those without insurance tend to be self-employed or work for small businesses who can't afford to provide coverage, he said.
"It's our view that mandates are not going to fly in Ohio, both politically and economically," said Owens, who helped craft the plan. "If you don't have mandates, you have to make it attractive to both employers and consumers to come in."
Premium payments
The plan would ask employers to cover between 40 percent and 60 percent of premium costs, with the shares paid by the employee and by state and federal insurance programs fluctuating based on the worker's income.
A key to keeping the program's cost down would be that doctors and hospitals would keep their charges for program participants near current Medicaid levels, which would cost money for some patients but allow others to carry insurance who now don't, Owens said.
He estimates the program could provide health coverage to 425,000 of the state's 1.2 million uninsured.
The proposal is similar, though not identical, to Gov. Ted Strickland's health-care blueprint -- and its backers are encouraged by early positive responses from insurers, health-care providers, small-business interests and lawmakers.
The plan emerges as Strickland is soliciting ideas for tackling the health-care crisis that faces Ohio and the nation.
Extent of problem
An estimated 46.6 million Americans lack health coverage, and the gap is widening. In Ohio, the uninsured population has shrunk slightly -- from 11.2 percent in 1998 to 10.7 percent in 2004 -- but only as the state's Medicaid bills have skyrocketed.
During a gathering of Ohio health-care leaders Tuesday, Strickland said he wants the state to be "engaged in innovation and trying new things."
"As the problem increases, so does the press to find solutions," he said at a public health symposium at Ohio State University.
Strickland will travel to Washington, D.C., later this month to ask Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt to allow Ohio to use Medicaid money for premium assistance, he said. The money would be spent to offset premium costs for Ohioans who are living above poverty but still have trouble paying for their employer's health-insurance program.
The Democratic governor said he would oppose forcing financially strapped small businesses to provide health insurance for their workers, but might support legislation requiring large, profitable companies such as Wal-Mart to provide better health-care options.
Open to ideas
He said he welcomes all ideas for fixing the ailing health-care system.
Others said the more inventive the plan, the better -- given that nothing yet has worked.
"It's good to have a variety of options when you're looking at how to tackle the problem. It helps the dialogue," said Ohio Senate Chief of Staff Matt Schuler, who added his caucus is also studying alternative solutions to the issue.
Amy Goldstein, director of government relations for the Free Medical Clinic of Cleveland, said the proposal is intriguing. The clinic serves Medicaid-ineligible and uninsured patients.
"If this program allows them affordable access to health care, it stands to make a tremendous difference in the working lives of those who the Free Clinic serves," she said.
Ty Pine, a lobbyist for the National Federation of Independent Business-Ohio, said there are many plans emerging and his small-business members have not yet endorsed one.
A benefit of the Ohio Healthy Workers program is that it takes a free-market approach to the sale of insurance, allowing HMOs and private insurers to offer the policies, but simultaneously allows workers to use government subsidies to pay their share, he said.