Health-care task force girds its loins
The task force will begin the design phase of rebuilding a health care system that will ultimately ensure all Utahns have access to basic health care nearly 300,000 Utahns don't have insurance now.
Task force members must also develop some kind of cost-containment process or at least put a handle on the skyrocketing price of health care. At the current pace, the amount of money spent on health-care services in Utah will be equal to the combined annual income of Utahns by the year 2030.
Lawmakers on the special panel both members of the panel and those who will eventually vote on its recommendations as well as many care providers, patient advocates, business owners and insurance carriers hope the process unfolds less like a reconstruction project and more like a renaissance.
"In any case, by any assessment or however it comes together, it has to come together now," said John T. Nielsen, special health-care adviser to Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.
As it rolls out, all stakeholders, including consumers, advocates, the business community, providers, insurance companies, legislators and the governor's staff will be involved.
"If you're interested in how this is going to go and you're not at the table now, you better find a way to be," Nielsen said.
The task force will begin addressing 16 specific issues outlined in 16 bills approved earlier this year by legislators. The panel will likely appoint five or six work groups that will be assigned to develop strategies for each topic, including standards for exchanging medical records among providers, children's health insurance coverage and incentives to businesses to continue offering medical benefits including the service companies such as restaurants that have balked at providing coverage or co-payments of insurance premiums for employees.
Top on the list of priorities is getting everyone into the insurance pool, i.e., the chronically healthy to the chronically ill. No one gets turned down, and the system must be accessible and affordable to everyone in the state.
Lawmakers have said the service industry should be expected to be pay at least a portion of their employees' insurance premiums if all Utahns are going to be expected to have some kind of insurance coverage. More than 75 percent of Utahns who have insurance coverage have it through their employer.
The desired outcomes of the effort are pretty set, but plotting strategies for getting there is the big challenge, said Judi Hilman, executive director of the Utah Health Policy Project advocacy and research group.
Recent comments
Even insurance companies would do fine with catastropohic coverage...
JB | April 17, 2008 at 7:54 p.m.
We do not suffer from a dearth of insurance. We suffer from...
Scott | April 17, 2008 at 12:46 p.m.
Is so called HealthCare reform, only for the Insurance Companies to...
Tammi Diaz | April 17, 2008 at 7:22 a.m.
- Stocks fall 7:57 a.m.
- 1 dead at Pamplona 7:49 a.m.
- Somali insurgents behead 7 people 7:42 a.m.
- Obama: Recovery 'a ways off' 7:39 a.m.
- May trade deficit drops to $26B 7:33 a.m.
- 400,000 flee homes after quake 7:22 a.m.
- Funds for new courthouse approved 1:48 a.m.
- Godfrey vetoes Ogden budget 1:48 a.m.
- Odd Fellows Hall move 1:47 a.m.
- 2 country groups to perform 1:47 a.m.
- Rumor has Boozer with Bulls
- Jazz in back of line for free agents
- Stadium of Fire flag burning was fake
- Okur signs two-year extension
- Restaurant destroyed by fire
- Jazz won't meet Lopez on Europe trip
- A primer for the 6th Potter film
- Jazz rally for OT win at Orlando
- AK will not play for Russia this summer
- Mall owner seeks to retain zoning
- Bronco collecting a galaxy of recruits
140 - Letters: Palin mistreated
136 - Teachers struggle with district cuts
134 - Blazers may offer Millsap a contract
123 - Rumor has Boozer with Bulls
89 - Fairness of BCS debated
81 - Moon landing: Let's hear from you
75 - Chaffetz eyes challenging Bennett
73 - Services bids farewell to Jackson
70 - Letters: Time for a revolution
69
As more and more dads are put out of work in this economy, I've been...
The photographs are mysterious, brooding, dark. They show dimples and...
Hardly any scientist studies global warming theory. Why should a consensus...
Just wondering when people might realize how often their sentiments are...
It is really amazing how these virgin mary sightings attract so many people....
I've never thought of the war on drugs as something that individuals could...
either way it sounds like its going to be a fun night. as an RSL season...
It's not surprising that Collin "Coward" got it wrong. He works for the BCS...
Yes, let's destroy the planet as fast as we can so that Christ will return...
I have watched all Big Brother episodes from the beginning. I do not like...
It is our Father in Heaven we should be praying to in the name of Jesus...
re:nasty conservative philosophy | 7:04 a.m. July 10, 2009 "As a liberal I...

