But Blue Cross calls for high-risk pool
25 04 08 - 13:29
LANSING -- Sen. Tom George, chair of the committee examining proposed changes to Michigan's individual insurance market, attempted to broker compromises Thursday by asking that only policies that have the greatest support and that will benefit consumers the most be adopted.
"Can we focus on what we agree on?" asked George, R-Kalamazoo, and chair of the Senate Health Policy Committee.
George said he favors shelving many of the proposals sought either by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan or members of his own committee to manage the state's growing individual insurance market.
The legislative fight centers on insurance plans held by about 322,000 Michiganders, a growing number of whom are forced to buy their own insurance as they lose jobs or as employers drop workplace health benefits.
The debate hinges on whether the individual market is growing as fast as Blue Cross has predicted, or whether there is time, as George and others contend, to more carefully implement effective policies for health care consumers.
George suggested action on three key provisions of the proposals sought by Blue Cross, as well as substitute measures he and Sen. Jason Allen, R-Traverse City, have introduced. These areas are:
• Stronger protections for consumers who buy health insurance, so they aren't dropped or stuck in more expensive plans when insurers freeze enrollment on policies that cost less but provide less coverage. Blue Cross maintains this so-called cherry-picking is common and a key reason why it loses so much money on individual policies after people come to Blue Cross when other insurers drop them. As a nonprofit insurer of last resort, Blue Cross, by law, must enroll these consumers.
• Expediting the ability of Blue Cross to obtain rate hikes. Now, consumers and Michigan's attorney general can challenge proposed rates, a process that can delay rate hikes by a year or more. Blue Cross wants to use a system like commercial insurers, where it could immediately raise rates subject to later review by the state insurance commissioner.
• A 3-year study to get precise information on Michigan's individual insurance market.
George asked Mark Cook, director of government affairs for Blue Cross, "Can you support these three things where there's agreement?"
"No, we don't want to wait" on the other issues, Cook replied. He said Michigan particularly needs to create a high-risk pool, similar to ones that exist in 35 other states, to provide coverage for people who get dropped by commercial carriers after that policyholder develops a health problem.
Pointing to large profits of commercial insurance companies, Cook said that the companies "are fighting changes in Michigan that will make them take a larger share" of the responsibility for providing insurance to the state's residents.
Also Thursday, representatives for Blue Cross, commercial insurers and the state's HMO association met with Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, D-Rochester, about the proposals. Matt Marsden, spokesman for Bishop, called the meeting routine. "It was nothing more than seeing we're all on the same page," and trying to get agreement between George and legislative leaders to have the Senate panel vote on a plan by next Wednesday.
Joe Aoun, an Ann Arbor health care attorney who testified for commercial insurers, said a high-risk pool would drive up costs not only for those buying insurance from the pool, but also from all policyholders who would subsidize it through their insurance plans.
Contact PATRICIA ANSTETT at panstett@freepress.com