NU Online News Service, Aug. 27, 12:04 p.m. EDT
Health insurance coverage should be required for all, similar to the way most states require auto insurance, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners said.
Without wading into the controversial details of health care reform, such as a government health insurance option, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) instead offered a reminder that virtually every presidential candidate in 2008 argued for change to the current system, and that "there is strong consensus that reform of the health care system is absolutely necessary."
NAIC president and New Hampshire Insurance Commissioner Roger Sevigny said in a statement yesterday, "There is no serious dispute that our present system fails to cover millions of Americans and costs all of us too much. These are the two core issues that we must address as we move forward on the broad common ground that exists."
The NAIC focused on areas where there is agreement, stating that covering all Americans is essential for a health care system financed through insurance.
"In order to finance health care through insurance as efficiently and as affordably as possible, everyone – the young, the old, the healthy, and the sick – has to be in the system," said Sandy Praeger, Kansas insurance commissioner and chairman of the NAIC's Health Insurance and Managed Care Committee.
However, the NAIC noted that if coverage is guaranteed for all but purchase is not mandatory, there will be some who will wait until they become sick to buy that coverage.
"Such a voluntary system could lead to 'adverse selection,' where those with higher costs and likelihood of care participate in the system, while those with lower costs and likelihood of care do not," the NAIC said.
To prevent this scenario, the NAIC said, "The only effective answer to these concerns is to require everyone to purchase health insurance, much as states already require the purchase of auto insurance."
The NAIC also discussed prohibiting insurers from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and eliminating caps on annual or lifetime benefits for patients with high-cost conditions who can exhaust these caps very quickly.
Mr. Sevigny called on Congress to allow the states latitude in any reform bill as well. "Our nation is too vast and too varied for one regulatory regime to fit all," he said. "Congress should allow states wide latitude to enforce their respective laws when those laws provide greater consumer protections than those afforded by federal law."
Ultimately, the NAIC said reducing costs and fixing the health care system is essential and requires collaboration and compromise. "Progress in Washington is being made, and there is consensus to be attained if the reform proposals are judged on their substance," the NAIC said. "There is far too much at stake to let this opportunity to improve health care slip away."
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