Gas may be high, but health care is the real budget buster

The state's health care system is in much worse shape and is having a much greater impact on Utahns' financial well-being than the skyrocketing price of gasoline, food or any other cost of living, members of a special legislative task force were told repeatedly Thursday.

Business leaders told the task force that while the price at the pump may be literally bringing people to tears, uncontrolled cost increases and varying degrees of quality of medical care is a combination that is bringing the entire economy to its knees.

Lane Beattie, president of the Salt Lake Area Chamber of Commerce, briefly choked back tears himself when assessing the burden businesses are shouldering by offering insurance benefits packages to employees.

"If there is one thing we all must understand, the status quo of health care is absolutely unacceptable to Utah businesses," Beattie said. "Insurance premiums are out of control, and we have no choice but to demand change. There is no accountability in our health care system, and if we don't fix it, the state that is time and again cited as the best managed in the country will lose our competitive edge economically."

The impact of uncontrolled health care costs is five times the effect of gasoline prices on a family's budget, he said, noting that a health plan that cost an employer $700 per month in 2006 was $932 a month in 2007.

The price of insurance premiums are rising 10 times faster than household income, currently $11,480, Beattie said. That is well over the total annual income of someone on minimum wage.

Those figures are just part of the "overwhelming evidence" that the entire system must be retooled, Beattie said. The number of businesses offering health insurance benefits package to employers — where most people obtain coverage — has reached an all-time low of 44 percent. Utah currently leads the nation in the number of business that have simply stopped offering medical benefits over the past four years, he added.

"We are beyond the critical stage, and we are unified in our demand that things must change," he said. "Real change requires real change, not just tinkering."

Sen. Sheldon Killpack, R-Syracuse and task force co-chairman, said the figures provide yet another reality check to the task force. He urged the chamber to provide solutions, not further descriptions of how badly the system is broken.

Task force member Sen. Wayne Niederhauser, R-Sandy, said one solution must be to change the system's incentives. They must be switched from more money for more expensive care and emergency room services to ongong primary care to prevent illnesses from becoming critical.