Maine’s families deserve affordable health plans

Eighty percent of those without health insurance in our state are working people. This is wrong. People who work hard and play by the rules deserve their fair share of health security. We are tired of paying more for less or nothing. We deserve health care that is there when we need it.

Expanding access to guaranteed quality, affordable health care is an investment worth making. It is the right thing to do because it helps folks keep healthier. It is also cost-effective, as access to preventive care and chronic disease management reduces emergency room visits and hospitalizations. Businesses benefit from a healthier, more secure and more productive work force. And healthy families and businesses make a healthier Maine economy.

There is much to consider and act on this legislative session on health care. I believe we should do so within the context of health care as a shared responsibility. All of us – individuals, employers, physicians, hospitals, insurers and government – have a role to play to solve this crisis. It will take a thoughtfully balanced cocktail of medicine – not one magic pill – to recover.

Shared responsibility starts but does not end with individual responsibility. This involves choices – what we eat, whether we exercise and go for preventive health screenings, and other behavior that affects longevity and health care costs. And it includes paying our share of health care costs within our ability to do so.

Shared responsibility also means that we expect companies to invest in quality health benefit plans for our work force, with reasonable co-pays and deductibles that enable families to access care. If all employers were to contribute their fair share within their means, it would also level the playing field among those competing with one another. And enabling part-time workers to be eligible for health care benefits would protect workers from reduced coverage or hours.

We must also reduce health care costs. In doing so, we should not fall for the myth of the “free market” – that our current private insurance industry-driven system will solve all of our problems. It hasn’t and won’t. The status quo has resulted in the U.S. spending more than twice what other major industrialized countries spend, while remaining the only among them to not achieve universal coverage, all while placing average to below average in key health care quality outcomes. Every state – whether more or less regulated – is faced with the problem of rising health care costs, and Maine cannot afford to wait for a national solution that may never come.

And working families are not sympathetic to premium increases while insurance company CEOs receive multimillion dollar bonuses. We need transparency in costs that would allow us to follow the money, know where it is going, and invest wiser. How much do diagnostics and treatment really cost to deliver? Are there treatments being performed that do not improve health outcomes? How much does administrative overhead cost us? And profits? The public should have the right to know.

We also need meaningful choices but not more confusing choices of health plans and providers. We want to be in control of our health care decisions and need tools that will enable us to truly compare price, coverage, quality, and service. Standardized, comprehensive benefit packages options that meet our needs would enable us to make true comparisons of health plans and get better value for our hard-earned dollars.

Investing in care coordination technology would also reduce costs, enabling physicians to more efficiently manage care across the health delivery network. Health information exchanges reduce costly medical errors and duplication of diagnostics. Similar technology enables improved chronic disease management that better informs patients on the progress of their self-care, empowering them to keep themselves healthier.

The Legislature will consider bills in the coming weeks that offer opportunities to address some of these issues. They are solutions waiting to be invested in. Investments in our working families, our communities and our economy. Our health care crisis is forcing choices that our working families should not have to make as they balance their necessity checkbooks, decisions between seeking appropriate health care, keeping up with mortgage payments, putting food on the table or warming homes. We can and must do better, now.

Rep. Jill Conover of Oakland represents District 78 in the Maine House. A Democrat, she is a member of the Joint Standing Committee for Insurance and Financial Services.