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St. George Hosts First of Health-Care Talks

Posted on: Friday, 7 October 2005, 15:00 CDT

By Nancy Perkins Deseret Morning News

ST. GEORGE -- It's all just talk right now, but Utah could require all its residents to have some form of individual health insurance or agree to pay their medical bills out of pocket instead of expecting the government to pick up the tab.

That proposal was one of six ideas discussed at a town meeting in St. George on Thursday by state health-care officials seeking input on how to help the 10.2 percent of Utahns without health insurance.

Discussions kicked off in May when Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. held a summit on health care for the uninsured at the University of Utah. Huntsman also established a workgroup to help formulate solutions to reduce the number of uninsured by 5 percent by 2010.

"We have some good ideas, but we don't have the confidence yet to know what we're going to do," said Dr. David Sundwall, executive director of the Utah Department of Health and a member of the work group.

"The vision for Utah is this; that it would be in our interest to make sure all Utah citizens should be able to get needed health care and health insurance is the best way to ensure access to that care," Sundwall told about a dozen health care and business professionals gathered at Dixie Regional Medical Center.

The one-hour meeting, which ran longer than expected, is the first of five similar sessions scheduled around the state through the next couple of months. The next meeting is Oct. 17 in Provo.

"We're here to find out where the devil is in the details," said Kent Michie, commissioner for the Utah Insurance Department and a work group member. "One thing has become very clear, health-care delivery in the United States is a mess. Inflation in the health care business has been four to five times the core rate of inflation."

Elements of the health-care crisis include excessive administrative costs; unacceptable levels of uninsured people, such as the 251,400 uninsured in Utah; and cost-shifting mechanisms like free clinics and dependence on emergency room care that move the burden of health-care costs to others, he said.

The typical uninsured Utahn is white, non-Hispanic, male, between the ages of 19 and 34, a high school graduate with no college degree, holds a full-time job and earns between $20,000 and $45,000, according to data handed out at the meeting.

Employers who help solve the health-care issue will remain competitive, have healthier and more productive workers and be able to control their own destiny, said Dr. Richard Sperry, director of the Matheson Center for Health Care Studies at the University of Utah and member of the governor's work group.

But it is the high cost of providing health insurance to their employees that small-business owners find so overwhelming, said Ron Casper, who was there representing the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

"Insurance rates for these businesses are up anywhere from 25 percent to 50 percent," said Casper. "They're saying to the health- care industry, 'We can't afford you.' Small-business owners are making a gut-wrenching decision on whether to provide health insurance to each employee."

Chris Coons, southwest regional vice president for Intermountain Health Care, said health insurance is still a "use it or lose it" proposition for those who have it.

"We see a run on the hospital at the end of the year," he said. "People figure they've paid their deductible and they want their money's worth. We'd like to get rid of that."

Some of the work group's proposed actions for 2006 include raising the age requirement for dependent coverage from 26 to 30 years old; extending the time period for coverage exclusions to 12 months; possibly requiring all Utah higher education students to have insurance; allow the "cash price" of medical care to be lower than the "negotiated price"; and marketing existing public health- care programs to enroll more people

Possible long-term solutions include looking at tax credits to employers or individuals, developing state-sponsored risk pools, mandating insurance coverage by the employer or individual, or creating an efficient health-care cooperative governed by the state to oversee medical payments for all Utahns.

For more information on the governor's initiative on health insurance for the uninsured visit the Web site: www.healthdata.state.ut.us/uninsuredsummit/.

E-mail: nperkins@desnews.com

Source: Deseret News (Salt Lake City)

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