[Sonny M]

It should be noted that at least one of these proposals has gotten out of committee.

The proposal by John Shadegg called Health Care Choice Act of 2005 (H.R. 2355) got through on a thin margin.

I'm unaware of the status of the other 2 bills.

[upchuck]

Interesting that the RATS have no proposals of their own. Typical though. RATS haven't had a original thought in years. Too busy demonizing the pubbies.

[MNJohnnie]

Glad to see Repbos not afraid to take the fight to the Dims on their OWN "domestic agenda". Since they all supposedly "care about the little guy" what are they "Doing to fix health care"?

[NeoCaveman]

The proposal by John Shadegg called Health Care Choice Act of 2005 (H.R. 2355) got through on a thin margin.

Shadegg is great. It would allow someone in NJ to buy a policy based out of OH or any other state.

I just got a short term policy in my home state (OH) that would have cost atleast 4 times (maybe more) as much in NJ because of their regulations.

[marsh2]

I am concerned about parity for mental health benefits and other mandates. I used to be a supervisor in a group underwriting section of a national insurance company. All of these benefits add costs to the policy. The more coverage you mandate, the more everyone pays in premium.

I also have had some experience paying medical claims. Generally, we did not insure associations. They were not stable enough and did not demonstrate enough of a real common business interest amongst members to behave in a predictable manner for underwriting purposes. (Most premiums are based on the claims experience of the particular group. The smaller the group and the fewer the number of year's experience, the greater reliance on claims incidence statistic of a more general population.) Our company built in a 10% margin over what we projected costs of paying out claims to be and built that into premium. If they didn't use the 10%, the policyholder got it refunded as a dividend.

Money was made on the life insurance business and opportunities for holding money for a while to invest. It sure wasn't made on the health insurance line.

Whatever Congress does has to be actuarialy sound. You can't just point a magic wand and make it so without affecting the costs.

It has got to go to a basic major medical policy available to anyone with a good sized deductible, 80% coinsurance, out of pocket stop loss, cost containment and preferred provider contracts. Then the government can step in with gap plans for those who qualify by income or disability or age or such criteria. Or they could allow waivers for deductibles and coinsurance for qualified folks.