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Laying Down
the Laws
Health care and the '98 legislative session
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Business New Haven
2/9/1998
By: Lori Green
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Interview with Republican State Sen. William A. Aniskovich of Branford, ranking minority member, Health and Hospitals Sub-Committee of the Appropriations Committee and former vice chair, Public Health Committee. BNH asked Aniskovich about health-care priorities in the upcoming legislative session.
Which health care items are on the legislative agenda for the upcoming session?
Most of the legislation of the 1998 session will be implementation-related. As the 1997 managed-care bill starts to be implemented and various problems or issues arise, the committees will be asked to address those issues - unlike last year, where we dealt with the major policy statements.
Aren't there still a few big policy issues that have not
yet been addressed?
There are still a couple of biggies looming out there: the conversion of not-for-profits to for-profits, the merger and acquisition by out-of-state corporations of in-state health care companies, whether for-profit or not-for-profit. Also, the corporate responsibility bills that were packaged and defeated last year. I think business leaders have to be very wary of that whole group of corporate/organizational issues that are also national issues.
Which of these is likely to have a direct impact on the regional business community?
Enterprise liability, which has to do with whether or not providers will be successful in imposing liability on HMOs for decisions that the providers claim are health-care decisions. The HMOs claim these are coverage issues. If anything has the portent of being the single biggest driver of rates on the health-care side, it's enterprise liability. If HMOs are opened up to liability for damage lawsuits based on coverage determinations that are construed by statutes or by courts as health-care decisions - medical decisions - rates are going to have to increase substantially.
Any others?
The other key issue that I think business leaders should be watching is mandates. We are going to see a whole slew of bills proposing mandated benefits. There may be situations where I happen to agree that the benefit itself is something that should be paid for, and mandating its coverage is a decent protection. But where do you draw the line? One hundred eighty-six other legislators want their benefit or two mandated. Connecticut already has more mandated insurance benefits than any other state in the union.
How do you view the fact that premiums in 1998 are
now projected to rise about seven percent, up a couple of digits from predictions just a few months ago?
What happens to rates is a function of a number of different forces coming together at any one time. Because of hyper-competition among plans right now, the rates that businesses are paying are incredibly low. We legislate policies that have the effect of either raising or lowering rates; we don't directly cap, roll back or otherwise regulate health care rates in Connecticut.
Do you know who will be producing the HMO consumer report card and how it will be disseminated?
The legislature is going have to define who is going to do that and what it's going to look like. BNH
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