Researcher nominated for insurance post

Gov. John Baldacci on Friday announced his nomination of Mila Kofman, a researcher and associate professor of health policy at Georgetown University, to become Maine’s next insurance superintendent.

If confirmed by the Legislature, Kofman would replace former Superintendent Alessandro Iuppa, who left office a year ago after serving for nearly a decade. The position is currently filled by Acting Superintendent Eric Cioppa.

“Mila brings a tremendous level of experience and balanced judgment to the role of superintendent,” Baldacci said in a prepared statement. “I am confident that she will bring all her strengths to bear to lead this important agency and its excellent staff, which plays a crucial role in monitoring the financial soundness of the insurance industry and enforcing consumer protections.”

While the Bureau of Insurance regulates insurance companies of all sorts, from car and business to health and workers compensation, Kofman’s expertise clearly is in health insurance – a critical issue nationally and in Maine.

According to information from the governor’s office and the nominee, Kofman has studied and written extensively on the problem of the uninsured and underinsured in this country with a focus that includes industry regulation, affordability, and the adequacy of the employer-based insurance system. She has testified on health care matters before Congress and has helped congressional lawmakers draft legislation affecting managed care reform, association health plans, the Medicare Part D prescription drug plan and other areas of health policy.

Since 2001 Kofman has served as a co-editor of the Journal of Insurance Regulation, and since 2002 she has served as a consumer representative at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. From 1997 to 2001, before joining the research faculty at Georgetown, Koffman was a regulator at the U.S. Department of Labor, specializing in state and federal health reforms and initiatives.

According to its Web site, the insurance bureau is charged with regulating the insurance industry for “solvency and consumer protection.” The agency has the authority to enforce the state’s insurance laws. It initiates investigations and holds hearings concerning possible rules violations and rate increases.

Former Superintendent Iuppa played a key role in developing the framework of Baldacci’s contentious DirigoChoice insurance plan and upholding its funding model, a complicated “savings offset payment” assessed against insurance companies. But Iuppa, who believed overregulation of health insurance companies was largely responsible for Maine’s higher-than-average insurance costs, was a lightning rod for criticism from consumer groups, which charged him with being too friendly to the industry at the expense of consumer protections.

Reached Friday afternoon at her office at Georgetown in Washington, D.C., Kofman said her goal, if confirmed for the Maine post, would be to “reach a good balance. You need to protect the interests of consumers of insurance while … creating a regulatory environment where companies feel they can do business.”

Kofman said she doesn’t believe Maine’s regulatory environment is responsible for spiraling insurance costs. Maine law currently requires companies to offer and renew coverage despite a person’s health status, limits how much the cost of policies can vary, and requires that mental health benefits be covered.

Kofman said studies have shown that “if you get rid of all mandates, you get maybe a 5 percent maximum savings.”

Rather, she said, it’s the cost of health care itself, delivered by doctors and hospitals and other providers, that is out of line in Maine. “I would look forward to working with other stakeholders to get those costs down,” she said. “That would be good for consumers and the health plans.”

The lobbying organization Consumers for Affordable Health Care brought Kofman to Maine in 2005 to testify on a health coverage policy initiative, according to executive director Joe Ditre. He recalled that she was a supporter of Baldacci’s Dirigo health reforms and of the DirigoChoice insurance program in particular.

While Maine’s insurance superintendent oversees the industry as a whole, Ditre said, the state’s leadership on health policy issues makes Kofman’s expertise in health insurance and her support for state-level reform a good fit.

Calls on Friday to Maine’s largest health insurer, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maine, to Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, which recently took over the administration of DirigoChoice, and to the Maine Association of Health Plans, the industry lobbying group, were not returned.

If confirmed, Kofman would fill the position through April 2009, the expiration of the five-year term of former superintendent Iuppa.