Legislator plans health-care push

Access to health care is proving to be a hot topic for the upcoming legislative session, with one state senator looking to establish it as a constitutional right and another wanting to make sure Utahns have adequate choices.

Sen. Michael Waddoups, R-West Jordan, is working on "patient choice" legislation that would require all state-regulated health plans to include an option for consumers to receive care from whomever they choose.

"It allows them to pick their doctor, pick their hospital, even their pharmacy," he said. "It's a choice issue."

Waddoups unveiled the proposal Friday at the annual meeting of the Utah Ambulatory Surgical Center Association. The organization has been an outspoken proponent of competition in Utah's health-care market, fighting to level the playing field between independent providers and larger hospitals and health-insurers.

UASCA maintains its members have been edged out of the market by the big health-care networks and has appealed to various lawmakers for legislation that would provide equal patient access and reasonable reimbursement for services.

Waddoups said Friday that his bill would do just that, by requiring that health plans offer a "swing-out option" for patients to go outside the plan's contracted physicians and hospitals for care. For those who go outside their network, the plan would be obligated to pay 85 percent of the normal benefit, with the consumer paying the rest.

Waddoups said he would like to present the bill next month to the Privately Owned Health Care Organization Task Force, a legislative body he co-chairs that has spent the past two years looking at things such as access and transparency in Utah's health-care system.

The measure did receive some support Friday from other lawmakers at the UASCA conference. Sen. Allen Christensen, R-North Ogden, said the bill is a good attempt "to try to even the playing field a little bit and not allow the free-standing surgery centers to be squeezed out of the market."

While promoting competition in health care and decrying the "mini-monopolies" created by huge networks, Christensen was also careful to express support for the same.

"If it sounds like I'm bashing the hospitals, I'm not," he said. "They're great; they're necessary."