TN TAX BATTLE: (NAFARIOUS) NAIFEH ADDS 'SIN TAX' INCREAST TO (INCOME TAX) PLAN

The Tennessean ^ | 5/16/02 | staff

[GailA]

House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh geared up yesterday to make his 4.5% flat-rate income tax proposal more attractive to House members by including tax increases on cigarettes and alcoholic beverages.

The move came as a counter-proposal, taking a different twist on the state sales tax, ran into trouble because of wobbly revenue projections and was sent back to committee by the sponsors.

[GailA]

Some say plan needed for TennCare's health By Paula Wade, The Commercial Appeal May 16, 2002

NASHVILLE - Legislators blasted Gov. Don Sundquist's proposed 18-month "stabilization plan" for TennCare, saying the state should not assume TennCare's insurance risk when Tennessee is broke and has exhausted its budget reserves.

But TennCare officials and advocates say they believe the step is necessary to keep TennCare's troubled MCOs afloat while the program is restructured, and to keep medical providers from abandoning the program. TennCare's health providers are still holding unpaid debts from last year's collapse of Access Med Plus and are worried that Middle Tennessee MCO Universal Health Care is near collapse as well.

Under Sundquist's plan, existing TennCare MCOs would be paid a 9 percent management fee for administering TennCare, with incentives totaling an additional 2.2 percent if they hold medical costs within state-set spending limits. But if medical expenses exceed that amount, the state would be liable.

TennCare Director Mark Reynolds told the TennCare Oversight Committee on Wednesday that the state is working on new contract language to assure that MCOs have enough meaningful incentives to keep the state's exposure for medical claims within the state's budget. The 18-month stabilization would take effect July 1, Reynolds said.

"This is like leaving a flaming pile of, uh, problems on the doorstep of the governor's mansion for the next administration," said Sen. Roy Herron, D-Dresden. "But this time, the flames are high enough it might burn the whole house down."

The plan is a radical change in TennCare's basic premise since its establishment in 1994: paying private insurers a set amount to manage the care of enrollees and letting them _keep any remainder as profit.

Rep. Tre' Hargett, R-Memphis, expressed frustration that the panel just voted on a proposed rewrite of TennCare's waiver in December, "and here we are in May having to do something else to stabilize the program."

Sen. Doug Jackson, D-Dickson, said he wants to know the estimated amount of insurance risk the state would be exposed to under the stabilization plan, and called for the panel to meet again next week to get more information on the new financial risks.

But TennCare advocate Tony Garr, executive director of the Tennessee Health Care Campaign, said he's convinced the stabilization effort is needed to keep doctors and hospitals in the health program. "The doctors aren't getting paid, and it's hard to hold together any kind of a (health-care) network if the doctors aren't getting paid," said Garr. "This will give the providers some assurance."

Reynolds acknowleged the TennCare program has suffered from frequent makeovers, reforms and policy changes in recent years. "It seems that every year there's sort of a wildly new approach to the program," Reynolds told the committee. "It is very hard, because it doubles the work load. We're still trying to implement the last new idea people had, and now we have to do the new idea people have and that they wanted done yesterday."

Legislators also were critical of the state's plan to consolidate the credentialing of doctors and health providers under one contract, pointing out that MCOs say they've performed that function themselves faster and more cheaply than the state's new contractor, Aperture. But Rep. Gene Caldwell, D-Oak Ridge, the retired pediatrician who chairs the TennCare Oversight panel, said the move was pushed by doctors who demanded a single credentialing process so they wouldn't have to fill out papers for two or three different MCOs.

Under the plan, TennCare's MCOs would operate on the same no-risk basis Blue Cross has for its management of the state's TennCare backup plan, TennCare Select.

Paula Wade may be reached at 615-242-2018 or wade@gomemphis.com.

[crystalk]

Freepers and businesses seeking a low tax state, may flee Gore-land and avoid being Gored by moving to sunny Florida, which has a provision in the State consitution forbidding any income tax.

[GailA]

H... we have the same provision in OUR CONSTITUTION. It is NOT stopping the greedy B's from demanding an Income Tax and trying by every shady means to insitute one!

[TomServo]

Bump!

[GailA]

These tax increases with the new provisions will add OVER 25% more taxation on us. Under the original nafarious jim's plan it was ONLY 25%. This is a business and job killing bunch of taxes. Hubby is having a hard enough time finding a job and he has 28 years in his profession as an electronics trouble shooter for two way radio transmitter sites!