Perdue Leads Georgia In Romp Over Badgers
I wish this was a sports story. As much as I would hate to see Wisconsin lose to the Bulldogs, a football or basketball game would after all be just that; a game. In this case however, my headline above refers to health care legislation. As reported in the July 1 issue of the Heartland Institutes's 'HEALTH CARE NEWS', Governor Sonny Perdue has recently signed into law legislation designed to make health insurance far more affordable in Georgia. The legislation provides new tax breaks for "qualified" high deductible health plans (HSA's) and other market based, consumer directed reforms.
Dubbed Healthy Wisconsin by its Senate sponsors, 'our' approach to health care reform has largely been centered around a sweeping takeover by the state. While Georgia embraces market based reform, Wisconsin seems hell bent on destroying markets. Perhaps however rational minds will prevail. Just yesterday, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute released a detailed report entitled "Will Healthy Wisconsin Bust the State Budget?".
The contrast between the breaking news out of Georgia and the WPRI report on Healthy Wisconsin is striking. I never thought I'd be a Georgia fan but their 'team' seems to have a far better 'game plan' for health care reform. Now sit back and watch as they run up the score!
Labels: Legislation
posted by Jon Rauser @ 3:09 AM
2 Comments
As President & Owner of a successful health insurance brokerage in downtown Milwaukee - 
2 Comments:
If I'm not mistaken, a very significant portion of the savings that "Healthy Wisconsin" suggests would come at the hand of moving state employees from their current cadilac plans to a cost controlled plan. They have yet to do that. IF savings are that important to our legislators why not save that money now. Maybe saving money isn't as important as increasing dependency on govenrment.
Georgia's plan gives credit to consumers that want to take controll of costs. If Wisconsin came up with a plan that promoted shopping around, what Wisonsinites are known for, then maybe a healthy and economically whole Wisconsin is in our future.
The Legislative Branch needs to be on a separate plan from the State employees who they oversee. They have a group size that is rate-favorable all onto itself. This would also eliminate the appearance of a conflict of interest.
The separate plan should be a deductible and coinsurance mix with buy-up options at a higher premium if they elect superior coverage. The HMOs should be forced to offer less coverage at affordable rates. I am unsure if any of them offer a successful high deductible (HSA) plan now. We do know that the indemnity carriers do.
In-house discounts by the providers must be eliminated as that is where the cost shifting begins. This places all carriers on the same playing field and eliminates "buy-ins".
Clearly, transparency is the answer to controlling health care costs. But I don't think you will get the HMOs to share their contracting prices within their shops and outside of their shops. As Medicare and Badger Care and other government run programs continue to reduce their payment levels, health care costs will continue to increase at a disproportionate rate.
Kent
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