“Kisses of death” attack SB-217’s “Value Benefit Plans”
May 6th, 2008 | by admin |The core of Senate Bill 217 (previous posts here ) are so-called "Value Benefit Plans" that are supposed to be taxpayer-subsidized plans for low-income individuals and families. These plans are free from the dozens of mandated benefits that drive up the cost of insurance in the individual and small group market. Insurance companies would submit such plans to the legislature, who would give the companies permission to sell them – but only to "low-income" individuals.
During the April 9 hearing on SB-217, Senator Hagedorn himself admits that the "kiss of death" to his Value Benefit Plans would be "to load up mandates."1 Ironically, as Mark Hillman has noted, there were about a dozen of them in Hagedorn’s original proposal.
This is a real risk. As Ari Armstrong notes in his excellent overview of what’s wrong with health care policy,
once politicians force you to buy something, special-interest groups will constantly fight to include their pet service as part of the forced package, whether you want it or not. The result will be continual pressure to expand the scope of the forced insurance and make it ever more costly.
Indeed. The Denver Business Journal reports that this is already happening:
Another House provision would direct the panel to consider plans that cover hospice and palliative care, which specializes in the relief of pain from serious illnesses. Critics say that will drive up the costs of the plans, which were originally conceived as a low-cost option for people who need minimal coverage. Hagedorn is said to be unhappy with the House’s changes to the bill.
1 Source: Personal notes from the hearing. I have not acquired the recording.
tags: Colorado health care, mandatory insurance, SB 08-217
