02/29/2008
CONTACT: Michelle Bolton, 602-263-7690 or Tony Malandra, 415-664-9685
Attempt to make insurance more affordable dead for the remainder of session
PHOENIX -- The representative group for Arizona's small business owners today blasted a committee of the Arizona Senate for effectively killing a legislative proposal that would have shown the impact of health-benefit mandates. Mandates are legal requirements placed on providers of health insurance policies by government to cover various procedures.
"Lawmakers continually ask for more time to thoroughly debate health-benefit mandates and for more disclosure about their impacts, whether positively or negatively. However their 'no' vote tells me otherwise," said Michelle Bolton, Arizona state director for the National Federation of Independent Business. "I am truly disappointed that they did not see the value of greater disclosure before they vote on mandates. After all, small business owners and their employees are footing the bill for each mandate lawmakers place on insurance policies. Without fully understanding the impact, they could be voting for premium increases, jeopardizing health insurance affordability and accessibility for many."
The action of Bolton's discontent was a 3-to-3 vote yesterday in the Senate Health Committee on Senate Bill 1294, effectively killing it for the session. The measure sought to open up future mandates on health insurance for debate on their social and economic consequences in a more researched and reasoned manner, apart from the purely emotional testimony that usually accompanies them.
According to the Council for Affordable Health Insurance's State Health Insurance Index 2006: A 50-State Comparison of the Nation's Health Insurance Market report, "Surveys of the uninsured consistently show that the cost of health insurance is the primary reason for their being uninsured … The general public and the media are largely unaware that state legislatures have a significant impact on the cost of health insurance premiums in the small group (i.e., 2 to 50 employees) and individual (i.e., individuals buy their own policies) health insurance markets … Mandates are what drive up health-care costs, and with each increase comes a new wave of medically uninsured." For more than 20 years, studies conducted by the NFIB consistently found that the cost of health care the No. 1 worry of its members, and each time it widens its lead over the No. 2 concern out of 75 problems measured by NFIB.
Among other things, Senate Bill 1294 would have run mandates through a serious of questions, including what extent is the service utilized by a significant population; the extent to which insurance coverage is available; the amount the coverage will increase or decrease the cost of the treatment; the impacts of coverage on the cost of healthcare; and how the coverage will decrease or increase the administrative expenses of insurers and policyholders.
