House OKs health-care reform plan

Two health-care reform bills passed the House Thursday morning with overwhelming support.

A bill designed to initiate the next stage of a long-term health care reformation in Utah was approved this morning 64-4 in the Utah House.

All House members who spoke during the more than hourlong discussion of HB188 endorsed the bill, some with reservations. The four votes against the bill are the first official sign of contrary opinions in the now two-year-old health care system reform that is a joint effort of the Legislature and Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.

Rep. Francis Gibson, R-Mapleton, expressed an opinion shared by lawmakers who testified: "Health care is the most important issue in my mind and our citizens. This is a pilot project, and our ship leaving the shore and ocean lies between now and a solution."

Other lawmakers said they have concerns with some of the details, including the role of a newly established risk manager for insurers, but said they are more than willing to take a wait-and-see approach.

HB188 addresses the insurance industry specifically and amounts to a basic paradigm shift in Utah's health care system for insurers and the insured: Consumers will have more power and more responsibility in the course of their own health care.

The bill's sponsor, House Speaker David Clark, R-Santa Clara, reminded fellow representatives that full comprehensive system reform is eight years away, but that Utah is getting a start — and a head start compared to other states — to renovating a system that is as inefficient as it is expensive.

Just the bill's highlights of proposed changes, which go on for 46 lines, are a combined strategy of several repairs and new options for medical insurance. It includes a mandate on the insurance industry to cater to the small business market, which is increasingly opting out of insurance coverage for their employees.

A low-cost health benefit plan called the Utah NetCare Plan is to be offered by 2012 as an alternative to current laws that allows an employee who leaves a company to continue to be covered under the company's plan, known commonly as COBRA.

Earlier in the morning, legislation that takes a first step toward helping patients making heads and tails of their health care bills was approved unanimously in the Utah House this morning.

The sponsor of HB165 says the proposal begins to untangle the Gordian knot of hassle and paperwork associated with tracking and paying for medical services.

Rep. Merlynn Newbold, R-South Jordan, said the core element of the measure is to both streamline the process and decodify the generally closed vocabulary of billing statements for consumers.

The bill also brings patient information and medical service provider databases up to date with information technology that is routine in other industries. The sponsor said that in an era of instant information access and sharing, medical care is lagging way behind and, as a result, is inducing waste in the processing of medical services — not to mention serious errors in care — sometimes just through poor penmanship and communication.

E-MAIL: jthalman@desnews.com