Public/private health care options debated

As a U.S. Senate committee voted down putting a national pubic option plan into its health care reform bill, the Salt Lake Chamber on Wednesday extolled the virtues of local public/private options already helping Utah families.

The Senate Finance Committee members rejected two Democratic proposals to create a government insurance plan that would provide coverage for working families who either can't afford private plan premiums or who are deemed uninsurable because of pre-existing conditions.

The committee is one of five in Congress that have drafted bills addressing health care reform and is the only one that has voted against the option. Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Republican committee member and outspoken opponent of the public option, regards it as "a Trojan Horse" proposal that would bleed the private insurance industry of customers and counter to creating free-market solutions to the skyrocketing cost of health care in the United States.

The Chamber isn't taking sides, but held a news conference Wednesday to point out that while it believes market forces should be the core of health care reform, "we also recognize there's an important role for public programs to help children and struggling families," said Jake Boyer, chairman of the Salt Lake Chamber Board of Governors.

Options to help families aren't either/or, public/private issues, Boyer said, in highlighting that collaborative efforts between both private insurers and state agencies provide several assistance programs and all are nowhere near capacity.

Boyer noted that in Utah, private insurers such as SelectHealth are working with the state/federal Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the Utah Comprehensive Health Insurance Pool (HIPUtah) and Utah's Premium Partnership for Health Insurance (UPP) to keep private coverage for a family that couldn't otherwise afford the premium or who have chronically ill members whom no insurance plan will take.

Local proponents of the public option being part of national health care reform say it's needed to keep private insurers honest in their claims that they are designing plans to allow people more access and more authority in choosing plans that suit them and will stop excluding people due to pre-existing conditions.

Despite the vote against it in the Senate committee, strong support for it during that debate, and state-level efforts to see to the needs of people who fall through the cracks of the current system "makes the intellectual and moral case for the public health insurance option," said Levana Layendecker with Health Care for America Now.