Clinton Releases Health Coverage Proposal

But “is Romney still in favor of the Romney plan?” asks Eric Lotke, research director at the Campaign for America’s Future, Washington. “He’s been distancing himself from all that.”

Health insurance company and producer groups are welcoming the interest Clinton and other Democratic presidential candidates are showing in health insurance.

“You have to be encouraged that she put out this 8- or 10-page paper, with details,” says Bill Foudy, a Los Angeles agent who serves on the board of the Association of Health Insurance Advisors, an arm of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, Falls Church, Va.

But observers in the industry complain that Clinton has gone out of her way to demonize health insurers.

“The new Clinton plan includes important ideas to make coverage more affordable,” says Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, Washington. “Unfortunately, some of the divisive rhetoric seems reminiscent of 1993.”

Eric Raymond, CEO of Corporate Synergies Inc., Mount Laurel, N.J., a benefits consultant who likes many aspects of Clinton’s plan, such as provisions for improving the quality of preventive care and setting standards for health data interchange, says he believes fair competition between a Medicare-like plan and private plans could work reasonably well, at least for awhile.

If, however, government subsidies give the Medicare-like plan an unfair price advantage, that could push the country toward adopting a single national public health insurance system, Raymond says.

In the long run, if a proposal like the Clinton proposal takes off, “the small group employer market probably will be taken over by the government,” Raymond says.

Industry observers say they also have many concerns about the proposal details.

AHIA, for examples, says Clinton ought to keep costs down by including an affordable basic benefits policy.

Janet Trautwein, CEO of the National Association of Health Underwriters, Arlington, Va., questions whether the government could make individuals buy health coverage without creating a huge enforcement bureaucracy.

In the auto insurance market, 48 states require drivers to have liability coverage, but the percentage of drivers who lack auto insurance is about as high as the percentage of Americans who lack health coverage, Trautwein says.

Clinton estimates implementing her proposal would cost about $110 billion per year. But the costs could be much higher, and some of the “financing sources” Clinton lists are estimates of hypothetical health care savings figures that may not really materialize, Trautwein and Foudy say.