Ohio insurance rating low
Thursday, June 12, 2008
When Ohioans don't buy their health insurance through employers or other groups, they usually don't have very good insurance.
Ohio laws don't prohibit charging prohibitive prices for inadequate coverage, or even from denying coverage at any price, health consumer organization Families USA reported in "Failing Grades: State Consumer Protections."
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Few states do, it said. "Insurance companies can deny people coverage, raise premiums significantly, refuse to cover treatment for certain conditions and even revoke the coverage of policyholders who have been paying premiums for years."
The report shows, "We need to not only insure more people, but we also need good insurance," Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said Thursday, June 12.
Besides the 47 million uninsured Americans, the Commonwealth Fund reported this week that another 25 million have inadequate coverage, spending more than 10 percent of income on health care.
Most Americans have group coverage, but Families USA executive director Ron Pollack said the individual market of 27 million is growing as companies drop their health plans or hire more independent contractors without benefits. While 69 percent of firms offered coverage to at least some workers in 2000, just 60 percent did last year.
Business organizations often oppose insurance regulations on the grounds that government "mandates" would raise the cost of health insurance, which would increase the number of uninsured.
True, Pollack said, "prices would go up if insurers can't just cover healthy people. But of the 10 states with the most expensive premiums, six do not provide meaningful protections. And two states with lower premiums do provide good protections."
Nor do all insurance companies oppose stronger consumer protection, he said, although their industry groups do. "The better companies" are at a disadvantage if they sell policies, for example, to adult children of diabetics or cancer patients.
"If regulations put everybody on the same playing field, the good companies would thrive," Pollack said.
At the same time, Pollack said, presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and others in Congress "want to see us move from an employer-based system to individual-based," while further weakening state regulations.
"More and more consumers would fall prey to abusive practices," Pollack said, such as having a policy revoked after a cancer diagnosis.
"These standards," said Blumenthal, "are a moral mandate, not just a political goal."
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2129 or klamb@DaytonDailyNews.com.
