Wyden Argues For Wider Access To Insurance Exchanges

President Obama keeps saying under his plan for health overhaul, you can keep your insurance if you like it. But what if you don't care for the coverage you get on the job? Can you easily get something better?

Probably not. And the options for most people wouldn't change much under the leading overhaul proposals on Capitol Hill. Sure, new state marketplaces, or exchanges, would offer a range of insurance choices. But, as it looks now, only the uninsured and people working for small companies would be able shop there.

An absence of insurance choice is a mistake, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) argues in today's New York Times. And he offers up an idea to expand options while taking care not to undermine employer-based health coverage.

 

How about requiring every employer to offer at least two plans—one of them being inexpensive? If the bosses don't want to do it themselves, they could fulfill their obligation under Wyden's proposal by giving workers vouchers that would be good on an exchange. Or, he writes, employers could voluntarily decide to insure all their workers with a product from the exchange.

Wyden says the approach would boost competition, lowering costs and improving quality over time. The senator had his own idea, co-sponsored by Utah Republican Bob Bennett, for remaking the nation's health insurance system that didn't get any traction. So now he's looking to amend the Baucus bill to expand choices for insurance.

A few months ago Wyden explained to NPR's Julie Rovner why choice matters:

Eighty-five percent of the employers who offer coverage, can't offer choices. It's not because they're bad people. It's because the insurance market is especially tough on a lot of those employers, say they're small employers, they face up to 30 percent in the way of administrative costs.

If you do want to hold down costs...what you've got to do is give everybody access to an array of good choices like members of Congress have, and then make sure that they can get a financial reward for shopping wisely.