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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Health Care Insurance Rates Explode

Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Revie

No sooner had Republican state lawmakers rooted out and eradicated health care reform - which was working to curb costs and cover everyone - than insurance firms jacked up rates.

Ten, 20, 30, 40 percent.

State Sen. John Moyer of Spokane, a retired medical doctor who was a major player in the rewrite of reform, says critics warned him rates would explode.

“I didn’t believe it then,” he says. “I do now.”

The physician/lawmaker related the experience of Othello Community Hospital, where he sometime helps out. On his first visit after Medical Service Corp. applied for a whopping hike in rates, Moyer recalls, “I was met at the door by the hospital administrator.”

There the physician/lawmaker got an earful about MSC’s request for a 41 percent increase. Then he got a tongue-lashing about the state’s ballyhooed new Basic Health Plan for workers who can’t afford fancier coverage.

When the hospital administrator tried to get help for employees under the subsidized bare-bones plan, all he got was the runaround.

The sole contact for the Basic Health Plan was an 800 number with a recording. It was practically no help, and he couldn’t get connected with anyone who could.

“The Basic Health Plan has not been actively marketed,” Moyer acknowledges.

This is a common complaint about programs for the poor - they don’t get used. New programs in particular frequently generate masses of regulations and processes and makework - but little actually gets done on behalf of the needy.

“For some time it didn’t appear there was much enthusiasm on the part of the health care community to sell the Basic Health Plan,” confesses Moyer.

“And that is unfortunate,” he says, “because I consider this an opportunity to buy health care at a reasonable price. But too few people who need it know about it. And among those who do try to access the plan, it has been difficult.”

You call an 800 number and you get an application, he says. But the application asks questions that are too tough to answer without help.

Moyer says that more recently, “We have changed the phone system to make it much better. There’s a person at the other end now who can help you.

“Also,” says Moyer, “I told the health authority we want a representative east of the Cascades so we are connected by more than an 800 number.” Health officials have agreed to send helpers to Spokane for training, Moyer says, “and they will go around to various places.”

Plus, health officials have established a commission payment schedule for brokers as a financial incentive to sell the basic plan. And the basic plan is now being sold through hospital emergency rooms.

It’s still not enough. There is little I see to indicate that two-thirds of a million people without health insurance in this state will be covered. It’s not happening.

“About 75,000 people are covered under the Basic Health Plan now,” says Moyer. “Our goal is 200,000. That should come very close to covering everybody who should be covered.”

Workers who earn 125 percent of the poverty level, or less, can get subsidized coverage for $10 a month, Moyer says. Above the 125 percent threshold, the Basic Health Plan is still available at low-cost partially subsidized rates.

In addition to subsidized coverage for poverty level and low-wage wage workers, a full-cost “model” of the basic plan is available at very economical rates. Insurers must offer it to any and all individuals who can afford to buy it and to businesses that employ up to 50 workers.

“It, too, has very few takers,” says Moyer. Many employers and employees still don’t know the cut-rate coverage is available, he believes.

“It is just getting started,” says Moyer. “It’ll take some months to get established.”

Maybe. But I doubt it ever will.

This sounds very much like just another wrinkle on the old “affordable” no-frills health plan that business lobbyists got passed some years ago in an effort to stave off health care reform. The old “affordable” plan never caught on with most employers who didn’t cover workers. They still don’t. And they won’t.

But good luck.

, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel’s column appears on Monday, Wednesday and Sunday.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review

Associate Editor Frank Bartel’s column appears on Monday, Wednesday and Sunday.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review