Webb Brown - June 07, 2007
Montana Chamber of Commerce
For a Healthy Montana
Health care and health insurance is a topic on the minds of everyone these days. In fact, in the State Chamber’s annual scientific poll of Montana voters last Fall, health care costs were the #1 financial concern of folks. This beat out education funding, taxes, and energy costs by more than double. Health insurance is usually one of the top three concerns of our members when we visit around the state.
But it’s not just about cost, it’s about quality and availability, too.
And we know that Montana has one of the highest rates of uninsured people in the nation; roughly one in five are without insurance. Uninsured people bring special concerns to the mix. Not only are they susceptible to personal financial ruin with a catastrophic condition, they potentially add significant costs to treatment and to the entire system through cost-shifting.
So what is being done about this issue? For starters, the Montana Chamber is doing its part. Since many people get their health insurance coverage through their employer, we have pooled together as large and small employers across Big Sky Country to provide an alternative health insurance. Montana Chamber Choices is our association health insurance program that now covers well over 7,000 lives. Over half of these customers previously had no health insurance coverage.
For the past three years, the state and now 44 local chambers of commerce have offered nine different plans to their members. For more info on Montana Chamber Choices, call me at 888-442-MONT (6668) or check out the website at www.chamberchoices.com.
The Montana Legislature also dealt with health insurance in the recently completed Regular and Special Sessions of the Legislature. Some of this was good, some not so good.
First, the good news. Additional monies from the business budget surplus were directed to government programs like Insure Montana, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and the Montana Comprehensive Health Association (MCHA). This means that they will be able to expand coverage to more Montanans.
There’s good news in the bad news. We kept new/additional mandates to a minimum. Some mandates, like existing well-child provisions, help prevent potential catastrophic problems and costs from occurring down the road. But a lot are simply an additional cost for little or very limited gains. Over our objections, a dozen or so new mandates were introduced, but only one made it all the way through. Unfortunately, that mandate alone is expected to add around $15/year to your premium, at a time when employers are making tough decisions as to whether they can offer/continue coverage at all.
Finally, one effort in the Legislature would have cut associations from participation in the Insure Montana program. Association programs for years have provided the means for small businesses to pool together for greater bargaining and risk-sharing opportunities. Fortunately, we were also able to defeat that measure.
Another very promising direction is increased attention to wellness. More and more people are focusing on disease and accident prevention, rather than maintenance and treatment. The recent 2nd annual Montana Worklife Wellness conference brought folks together about implementing new programs, accessing resources, and recognized a number of award winners for their excellent efforts. The Montana Chamber was pleased to be a sponsor of this conference and is implementing wellness programs for Montana Chamber Choices.
Finally, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana is sponsoring a statewide healthcare conference this Fall, October 29-30, that will focus on solutions for our health care concerns. These summits in the past have been productive in coming up with significant benefit to deal with this major issue for not only the Montana Chamber and its members, but all Montanans.
Addressing health coverage will take an on-going, focused effort. The Montana Chamber is committed to participating to the greatest extent possible.
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