NYT
Washington
GIVEN the continuing partisan rancor over the health care reform act signed in March, how can responsible policymakers in the White House and in state capitols move forward to expand access to health insurance and reduce health care costs, goals that both parties share?
The answer is simple: health insurance exchanges, which have long had bipartisan support. These exchanges, which the health care act requires states to establish, allow individuals and groups to purchase coverage, under some form of risk pooling, from a network of insurers. The next step is for the White House to help state governments put these exchanges in place.
Public health insurance exchanges are not a new idea. Perhaps the best example of the model is the 50-year-old Federal Employee Health Benefits program, which provides a nationwide network of some 250 plans to more than eight million government employees, retirees and their dependents. Many states operate programs like this for their own employees and those on municipal payrolls.
Starting in the 1980s and 1990s, California, Texas and other states experimented with exchanges for small businesses as well. But these were less successful than the ones for public-sector employers — the combination of heavy-handed coverage mandates and cherry-picking by insurers selling to healthier individuals outside the exchanges drove up rates and forced them to close.
(More here.)
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