NU Online News Service, Aug. 3, 1:26 p.m. EDT
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., failed to win a commitment from federal and state insurance regulators for regulations imposing tight control on administrative costs in health care insurance premiums.
At an appearance before the Alliance for Health Reform, a group funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation–and of which Sen. Rockefeller is a charter member–Sen. Rockefeller made clear he would renew the battle for a public option if the so-called medical loss ratio (MLR) is watered down.
In his comments, Sen. Rockefeller said he will not allow health care insurers to "water down" the 80- to 85 percent MLR mandated in the new health care law by allowing health care quality provisions to be defined as medical care costs.
Sen. Rockefeller warned in his comments that he agreed to having an MLR in the health care reform law only as a compromise to a proposal by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., that would have created a public option.
"Implementation matters–it is the ball game," Sen. Rockefeller said, noting that health insurers are looking at ways to "whittle the MLR down."
However, state insurance regulators and Jay Angoff, the point man on the issue at the Department of Health and Human Services, remained mum on how they will interpret the MLR provisions in regulations implementing the law.
Speaking for the states, Brian Webb, manager of health policy and legislation for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, would only say that the NAIC hopes to complete work on the complex MLR "blank" by "the end of summer, hopefully by Sept. 23."
And Mr. Angoff would only say in response to Sen. Rockefeller's opening statement that "there still remains a lot of work to be done on MLR."
At the same time, Mr. Angoff announced that under the law, HHS will be providing up to $1 million for each state and Washington, D.C. to help the states deal with the regulations and other activities needed to implement the new law.
Ira Loss, a health care regulatory analyst at Washington Analysis, said that given what happened in both the House and Senate, Sen. Rockefeller does not have the votes to force a public option.
In other comments at the meeting, Len Nichols, a professor of health policy at George Mason University, said the new health care reform law is really about the fact that "business as usual is over" in health care delivery "because we can't afford it and the system is failing more of us each year."
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.