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| Chautauqua County Chamber of Commerce |
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Chamber Corner for May 9 By Todd Tranum, President/CEO, Chautauqua County Chamber of Commerce  |
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HEALTH INSURANCE AND A CONVERSATION WITH A TAXI DRIVER
I am riding in a taxi leaving the Capitol building in Albany heading for the airport for a return flight home to Chautauqua County. I reflect that for a good part of my life I have had an interest in health insurance. One could say I am a glutton for punishment. I am not exactly sure where this passion came from, but I suspect it came from my upbringing. My mother worked as a nurse for all of my childhood. Now understand this, I cannot stand the site of blood and pass out every time I am near a hypodermic needle. So being a health care professional was never part of my long term plan. So trying to figure out how to help people access insurance is possibly my part of contributing to the health of others. My father has spent a good part of his professional career trying to find local and regional solutions toward making health insurance affordable, he was driven by the fact that he often sat at the table with labor and management trying to help resolve disputes and time after time health insurance was the single most divisive issue. So I grew up with a unique perspective on the health care issue.
From a policy perspective I studied it as an undergraduate in college. A professor of mine would reinforce time and again was that if people do not have access to basic coverage and primary care they are going to get sick and often times develop expensive health related issues. He would continue that people who do not have insurance are often times going to show up in the emergency room and from there they will financially burden the tax payer and the private payer through premium increases. My professor was right about the coverage issue. When people are not covered by insurance it burdens the system, it burdens the tax payer and it burdens the private premium payer. Our private pay premiums continue to increase, in part, as a result of cost shifting that providers and hospitals must do to offset the expenses they absorb for charity care. Now, my professor had us study all the types of plans offered domestically and in other countries. We studied the Canadian model, German model and the quasi public-private system here in the United States. He fairly presented all the models and let us come to our own conclusions. I had many after class discussions with my instructor and through our conversations it became clear that he favored a single payer government system. He had good justification, evidence and logic.
Fast forward 15 years and I sit in an MBA class debating the virtues of our free market system and the fundamental flaws with a single payer government run system. We discuss how a one payer system is not effective in containing costs as they lack the free market forces that force down costs, these systems often limit access to care, governments that have implemented these systems are experiencing burgeoning expenses that are making them rethink their system and those individuals who can afford it, are going around the system seeking private plans.
Now, twenty years removed from the conversations with my professor, my team here at the Chamber is asked by our members to do something about ever increasing health insurance costs. My journey has taught me to first and foremost stay conscious of the needs of businesses and their employees. On this journey I have worked alongside insurance companies, sought the input of consultants and experts in the field and worked with other community organizations on insurance issues. This past year we went through a process of completely overhauling the Chamber of Commerce insurance program. Through those lessons and experiences, along with the recent passage of a historical national health care reform, I come back to a common reoccurring theme that the answer to this complicated issue lie in regional efforts and strategies. No government program can fix the intricacies and complexities unique to each region in this country. Every community is unique in their delivery system, market forces, business needs and individual needs. Regional economies, incomes, purchasing power and poverty levels differ from region to region. The multitude of variables nationally and from region to region creates an environment where there is no clear cut one size fits all solution.
Let’s get back to the taxi ride. The cabdriver is stocky, in his mid-sixties, several tattoos on his forearms and has a lot he wants to talk about. He tells me that when he is not driving his cab he has a construction job. His wife lost her job a few months ago. With one income they can no longer afford health insurance. You can tell this guy works hard and cares about his family. He mortgaged his home three times to put his children through college. Now, I spent the last five hours at the State Capitol discussing health insurance. The discussions I had were about our efforts through the Chamber of Commerce and Manufacturers Association of the Southern Tier to develop a new model that makes insurance more accessible to businesses. Then, I sat in a meeting with a representative from the New York State Department of Insurance and leadership of the Business Council of New York State. There I listened to an overview of federal reforms form the New York State perspective. I offered input on how the state should look at the reform as an opportunity to forge a relationship with Chambers of Commerce and business associations throughout the state and leverage the private sector broker community to implement the exchange model. These were policy discussions that I assume will determine the fate of health care reform in New York. The taxi driver reminded me how much there is at stake with the implementation of National Reform. Here is a man who has worked his whole life to make ends meet and to put three kids through college. His wife has diabetes. He is faced with expensive medical costs. I think to myself, if he crashes this cab and gets badly injured he will lose everything he has worked so hard to acquire, because he no longer is insured. I suggest to him that he look at a state subsidized private insurance plan. He is already on it. The premium for him and his wife is still more than he can afford but he hopes to be able to buy a plan in a couple of months. I am reminded that health care is intricate and personal. The decisions made regarding insurance needs vary from individual to individual.
These reflections and discussions of the past few hours reinforces to me that we are moving in the right direction with the new insurance model we have rolled out through a partnership of the Chautauqua County Chamber of Commerce, the Manufacturers Association of the Southern Tier and Liazon Benefits Inc.. What encourages me is that the new insurance program that was approved by our organizational leadership and put in place this past year empowers the individual consumer. Businesses in Chautauqua County now have access to an insurance exchange model to provide more health insurance options, dental and vision plans, an award winning on-line portal as well as consumer friendly enrollment and billing services. The program is premised on the belief that consumer-driven health care is a strategy that can help contain costs and empower people to make positive health and wellness decisions. Bottom line, the program presents businesses with a variety of insurance options. The employer can offer up to eight insurance options to each employee. Employees can choose from high deductible insurance plans with a health savings account, hybrid plans and traditional co-pay plans. The design of the portal and the ease of use for the employee, allows the small business person to focus on their core business.
Your Chamber is standing at the forefront of reform. Insurance purchasing exchanges are a key component of reform and we are already there, we are doing it four years before National reform demands it. If you are business without insurance and need to access insurance the Chamber is here to help you, call us. If you are a business that has insurance but not through the Chamber I ask you to call us and take a look at what we have to offer. You have nothing to lose and a lot to gain. So call us today at 716-484-1101 or 716-366-6200.
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