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July 11, 2010 at 08:00 PM
Hawkeye State officials say they need help explaining to lawmakers whether health insurance rates are going up for reasons other than big executive compensation packages and office facility expansion.
The Iowa Insurance Division announced in June that it is looking for a vendor who can explain just why Iowa health care and health insurance cost so much. The division asked for help with deciding what sort of information ought to be collected, how the information ought to be analyzed, and what the cost of the data collection and analysis process might.
Division officials now have posted a collection of answers to vendors’ questions about the Iowa health cost study request for information (RFI).
“Generally speaking, what the division is hoping to learn from this request for information process is how to provide as much information to the legislature as possible given what is currently obtainable information, and to advise them of the things that are not currently being tracked,” officials say.
In some cases, the Iowa division might be able to get any additional needed information by requiring insurers to track the information, officials say.
The division also needs help with defining terms, and with expressing information in terms that members of the Iowa legislature and other laypeople who ask, “Why are health insurance costs so high?” can understand, officials say.
“Absent actuarial expertise in their ranks, they appear to believe linkage exists between executive compensation and office facility expansion and rate increases, rather than the medical cost increases, demographics, and frequency and severity data,” officials say.
