Health plan compromise
Gov. Perdue and Republican
legislators compromised
the future of state employee and teacher health benefits to avoid charging insurance
premiums now. The compromise bill (S323)
taps health plan reserves to cover premium payments until as late as July 2013.

While weakening the long-term sustainability of the state health plan, the
compromise does little to provide better options in the near term. Younger
workers will more likely find cheaper alternatives to the $650 monthly premiums
to cover their families, a 5.3 percent increase. Out-of-pocket payments,
deductibles, and co-payments will also climb. Co-payments for generic drugs
will rise to be three times higher than the $4 most national pharmacies charge
for a one-month supply.

Those changes are the most allowed under ObamaCare if the state health plan is
to have "grandfathered" status and avoid additional costly
requirements. The best long-term solution is to move to a defined-contribution
health plan with personal accounts like an HRA or HSA.

Another ObamaCare compromise
Do Republican state
lawmakers support or oppose the federal health care law commonly called
ObamaCare? It’s hard to know. They passed a Health Care Freedom Act (H2),
but the House also passed an ObamaCare exchange bill (H115).
They filed an amicus curiae brief against ObamaCare in federal court, but the Senate is advancing a
bill (S496)
to meet "provisions required by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care
Act," including one nominally anti-fraud provision "that any agent,
clearinghouse, or other alternate payee (as defined by the Secretary) that
submits claims on behalf of a health care provider must register with the State
and the Secretary in a form and manner specified by the Secretary."
Legislators should separate whatever good fraud prevention ideas are in S496
and debate them on their own merits.

Legislators need to be more consistent in their approach to ObamaCare. The
federal law is unconstitutional, expensive, and will leave North Carolinians
with less access to medical care. ObamaCare is so bad, Grace
Marie Turner of the Galen Institute wrote recently, "In the latest
batch of waivers, one in five went to expensive restaurants, spas and other
businesses in former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s district in San Francisco.
… The waivers are just one more reminder of why
Obamacare will not stand."  

Memorial Day
We will not publish a
Health Care Update next week. Our thanks go to those men and women who gave
their lives for our freedoms.

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