Utah Legislature: Senate approves two health reform proposals

SALT LAKE CITY — Two key health care reform proposals in the Legislature were approved Friday by senators.

HCR8, which tells Congress to let Utah play by its own rules as it renovates health care in the state, has already passed the House, 23-4, and awaits the governor's signature.

HB294 was moved for final consideration on a 20-5 vote with the caveat that the bill isn't fiddling with private insurers in Utah the way lawmakers don't want Washington fiddling with Utah's reform effort.

A few veteran senators, including Senate President Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, voiced concerns that it includes what is basically a government-appointed risk pool adjuster board as part of the coming insurance marketplace. That new insurance market combines traditional plans through the workplace and a more benefit-tailored, privately purchased option through the Web-based health care exchange, now in the second year of a trial run.

Instead of just saying "yes" or "no" to whatever an employer's plan is, a working family would be permitted to shop for and use the premium paid by the employer to help pay for a plan they believe is more suited to their family's health care needs.

Waddoups said setting up a risk adjuster in the bill sounds uncomfortably like the forced risk-sharing that is central to nationalized medical care systems in Europe, which is counter to the free market principals that Utah reformers have made central to the state's health care overhaul.

"I'm really worried about this," he said.

Sen. Wayne Niederhauser, R-Sandy, and Senate sponsor of HB294, said the state already oversees risk through the state Department of Insurance. Adding the same oversight to the new exchange only furthers that function, and would be repealed in 2013 if insurers are, as they have promised, actually sharing the risk load of paying the cost of people with chronic health problems and the cost benefits of people who tend to stay healthy.

The exchange allows the free market to work by allowing people to become more involved in their medical care, including what insurance plan they buy, Niederhauser said.

"This is new territory," he said, "and no one is being forced to participate. But if we really want the exchange market to be viable and (the system) to move toward all the citizens of Utah having access to health care," it will require a joint effort by business and state government.

e-mail: jthalman@desnews.com