June 2008
In an effort to prepare for and understand how the medical insurance market could be changed in 2009, the Senate Finance Committee has been holding hearings on the subject and weighing the opinions of many health care groups, organizations, and specialists.
Among them was Aetna's CEO Ronald Williams, who suggested several ways that group health insurance could be preserved for employees and small businesses alike. He also offered his ideas as to other means by which American health care could be improved in general for the public.
His outline included:
- Offering tax incentives to all people who purchase medical insurance, whether they do so through group health insurance policies, or individual plans. This would make it easier for the public to pay for their coverage, and also would make it easier to enforce a health coverage mandate should there be one.
- Allowing cross-state purchasing of insurance. This would create a more competitive and dynamic market, and hopefully drive down prices.
- Creating new pooling mechanisms that would make it more affordable for small businesses to offer group health insurance to employees, and make it easier for individuals to purchase medical insurance at affordable rates.
- Increasing funding for state subsidized high-risk insurance pools, making it easier for those with pre-existing conditions to get coverage. As it stands, those with such conditions find it nearly impossible to get decent coverage at an affordable price.
So why should we take his word for it?
Of course, it's easy to distrust the CEO of one of America's largest and most successful medical insurance companies, but Aetna has good policies on its record. Several years ago, they endorsed a universal health insurance mandate that would have led to greater coverage for all citizens.
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