Socializing Health Insurance

NEW HAMPSHIRE, formerly home to the second-lowest health insurance costs in the nation, is on the verge of reinstating the very same “reform” that caused our health insurance rates to skyrocket a decade ago and which was later repealed. Unless, that is, House members pass an amended version of the “reform” bill.



Health insurance is one of those issues lawmakers are eager to be perceived as fixing. Even if a bill would have disastrous consequences, many legislators will vote for it anyway because they know that in the next campaign an opponent can say, “He voted to kill important health insurance reform.”



That’s one reason Jeanne Shaheen got her devastating insurance bill passed in 1994. After it became law, 30 insurers fled the state and our health insurance costs rose to among the highest in the nation. Legislators improved the law two years ago by passing Senate Bill 110, which has helped bring insurers back to the state. But because the law sensibly lets insurers base rates on a person’s actual risk of getting sick or dying, advocates of wealth redistribution want it changed.



If not amended, SB 125 will not only reintroduce community rating, it will impose an $18 million tax increase on small businesses and subsidize large insurers by creating a tax-funded high-risk pool into which they can dump their sickest patients. In other words, the bill takes three big steps towards further socializing health insurance.



However, opponents of SB 110 and opponents of SB 125 can each claim a victory if they work together to pass the amendment proposed by the minority of the House Commerce Committee. The amendment would fix some of the problems with SB 110 without imposing excessively burdensome regulations and new taxes that would chase insurers from the state.



Today’s vote will test whether House members truly want to make health insurance more affordable in New Hampshire, or whether they simply want to take credit for doing so. A vote for the amended version of SB 125 would be a vote for true reform.