SIIA, www.siia.org

House Reform Bill Proposes Provisions Harmful to Self-Insurance

As reported by SIIA, yesterday the House Democrat Leadership formally released their healthcare reform proposal. There are many provisions included that would be harmful for the Employer-Based Healthcare System and the private marketplace as a whole. Listed below are descriptions of the provision that would negatively affect self-insurance specifically.

Study of self-insured health plans:

Tucked deep inside the over 1000 page proposal is a provision that would require a study to be done on the Federal level to; compare and contrast self-insured health plans to fully-insured ones, review solvency levels of self-insured plans and determine the risk of self-insured plans to not be able to pay obligations. The study would also require recommendations be presented to “discourage small and mid-size employers from self-insuring”.

The intent of this provision is to clearly find any negative data on self-insurance so that it can be used to limit its use. SIIA’s Government Relations Office immediately contacted the staff of Committee of jurisdiction over this issue (as well as all the Members of it) to express our strong concerns with this section.

Tax on self-insured health plans:

Also included in the proposal is a provision to impose a “fee” on all self-insured health plans. The fee would equal to the “fair share” per-capita amount determined as either a per-life assessment equal to the amount necessary to fund the Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund (proposed as well in this bill) or a set per-life amount increased each year by the percent increased in the medical care component of the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

SIIA’s Government Relations Staff also formally commented our opposition to this provision to the appropriate House Committee and Members of it making the case that it would punish those employers doing “the right thing” by providing their employees healthcare coverage.

SIIA’s formal comments opposing this provision are attached to this email.

Senate Committee Finishes Formal Health Reform Consideration

The Senate Health, Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee moments ago finished its almost 3 week consideration of its version of healthcare reform – passing its bill by a party-line vote. HELP’s bill is the first version to be formally completed by a Congressional Committee.

The HELP bill proposes a government-run healthcare plan as part of a larger Health Insurance Exchange (referred to as a “Gateway”), a mandate on employers to offer coverage, (with the ability for employers of any size to enter the Gateway) a mandate for individuals to obtain coverage and insurance market reforms.

As drafted, it would be very difficult for the employer-system and the private marketplace as a whole to be sustained as if enacted, there would be a significant takeover of our national healthcare system by the Federal government.

Upcoming Healthcare Reform Schedule

The House Education and Labor Committee will begin its Committee markup today and is expected to go through at least tomorrow.

The House Committee on Ways and Means will begin its Committee markup tomorrow and is expected to go through at least Friday.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee will begin its Committee markup tomorrow and is expected to go through at least next Wednesday.

It is possible that the Senate Finance Committee could have language to release as early as the end of this week, but next week is more likely. It is also possible, depending on when language is released, that they could begin their markup by the end of next week.

SIIA Urges the Self-Insurance Industry to Make our Message Heard

SIIA urges all those in the self-insurance industry interested in preserving the way we do business and the benefits we provide to 75 million Americans covered by self-insured plans, to use the resources provided in SIIA’s Grassroots Toolkit and contact their Members of Congress to voice our message.

The threat to the self-insurance industry and the employer-based system under which we operate in has never been more significant. Now is the time to voice our powerful and unified voice to politicians in Washington that we will not stand for any proposals that would cause significant damage to our industry and to those lives we cover.

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This entry was posted by Adam V. Russo on Monday, July 20th, 2009 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Health Care Legislation, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.