Copyright 1999 The Atlanta Constitution
The Atlanta
Journal and Constitution
March 22, 1999, Monday, JOURNAL EDITION
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. 08A
LENGTH: 530 words
SERIES:
Final
HEADLINE: Health care bills may create new ills
BODY:
AN AMAZING THING happened at the
state Capitol last week: Senators engaged in earnest debate over a health care
proposal.
The debate, unfortunately, wasn't over the governor's main
bills, which could have a profound impact on the price and availability of
health insurance in Georgia. Instead, the debate was over a relatively minor
bill mandating insurance coverage of contraceptives.
Several lawmakers
rose to denounce government's undue influence in the health care business.
Mandating contraceptive coverage would push prices higher and
extend the long hand of government into private decision-making, some argued.
The cost of the mandate to Merit System employees alone would be $ 3.5 million a
year; the cost to the private sector would be considerably higher. And consumers
would have to bear that cost in their insurance premiums.
It was a
fascinating debate for this reason: It was nonexistent when it came to Gov. Roy
Barnes' three major health care bills. All three bills, with far more
consequential effects on health care in Georgia, passed both houses with barely
a dissenting vote. No one rose to protest the cost of mandating patient choice,
setting its price or policing the industry with an insurance advocate.
Nobody even rose to ask whether such price-setting and micromanaging was
an appropriate role for government. Democrats and Republicans alike barely
considered, as they stopped to do on the lesser bill mandating
contraceptive coverage, the costs, implications or overall
effect the bills would have on health care in Georgia.
Now we have a
bill creating an office of insurance advocate that says no insurer can raise
rates above the Consumer Price Index without triggering a review by the
advocate. Has it not occurred to legislators that for some industries, such as
health care, price increases can greatly exceed the overall rate of inflation?
For health care, rates of inflation have hovered at 7 to 10 percent a year. Last
year, the overall CPI was 1.7 percent. So for insurers to adjust rates just to
keep pace with inflation in their industry, they'll have to go to the state and
ask, "Mother, may I?" Why expand regulation, and possible litigation,
unnecessarily? We after all are paying the bills, both ways.
The
Legislature can reject this CPI language in conference committee. But don't hold
your breath.
The upshot of this year's unprecedented regulation of a
competitive business could well be: Higher prices --- though the Legislature's
intent was to keep a lid on price increases; Less competition, if a potentially
hostile regulatory environment prompts insurers to flee the state; And overall
reduced services, as insurers make up for the high costs of mandated benefits by
cutting back on unmandated, but still vital, services such as 24-hour hot lines
and preventive-health efforts.
Government interference always skews
competitive markets and imposes on business the inefficiencies for which
government is notorious. Consumers could soon begin to feel the negative,
unintended consequences of that interference in their health care bills, and
ultimately in the unavailability of good, affordable coverage.
LOAD-DATE: March 23, 1999
