How state's health care debate could affect you

Brokerage concept among the proposals to give more people access to insurance coverage

BY BRAD SHANNON | THE OLYMPIAN • Published February 11, 2007

And some business groups that already offer their own plans don't want their members forced into the choices laid out by the state.

But that's just one piece of the health care puzzle that the Legislature is starting to evaluate.

Monday marks the start of hearings on a major cluster of ideas and will feature Gov. Chris Gregoire's appearance before Senate and House committees.

Gregoire is championing ideas that came out of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Health Care Costs and Access last year. The commission set a goal of covering the state's 600,000 uninsured children and adults by 2012.

Gregoire's plan also would extend parents' insurance coverage to unmarried adult children up to age 25. And she would order the Health Care Authority to set up a "connector," or state-run insurance exchange - initially helping individuals and employees of small businesses pool their dollars to buy insurance en masse and at lower rates from a short list of qualifying plans. Gregoire would bring the "connector" idea back to lawmakers for authorization in 2008, policy aide Christina Hulet said.

Gregoire and other Democrats also are pushing to cover 32,000 more children of lower-income families with state paid health insurance, eventually covering all children by 2010; they also want fewer adults running to emergency rooms for care, which drives up costs for the state and hospitals.

But Cody and Sen. Karen Keiser of Kent appear to want to go much further. Cody's bill would require all Washingtonians to carry health insurance by 2012. While Gregoire calls for study and possible legislative action in 2008, Cody wants to fully authorize a "connector" that could operate by 2009 using the Health Care Authority as the brokerage or exchange where consumer, business and even state dollars would be pooled.

Keiser has a plan to backstop small-business employees' health care plans with a state "reinsurance" program to cover extraordinary claims costs. Like Cody, she also is looking for ways to boost overall insurance enrollment.