Weekend Update - Miscellany

The health care reform battle is placing focus on the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. Both the Tulsa (OK) World and the Poughkeepsie (NY) Journal published articles today identifying for readers the FEHB plans in which their Senators are enrolled. Sen. Tom Coburn would not say; Sen. Jim Inhofe is enrolled in the MHBP standard option; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is enrolled in the Blue Cross FEP, and Sen. Chuck Schumer is covered under his wife's non-FEHB plan. The Tulsa paper reported that

Randall Bovbjerg, who researches health care for the nonpartisan Urban
Institute, said the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, which covers
members of Congress as well as other federal workers, should not be viewed as a
"Cadillac plan.'' Bovbjerg said that impression has been fostered by the access
members of Congress can have to prestigious military hospitals and the doctor
that is always available for presidents.

In my view, what sets the FEHB Program apart from typical employer coverage is the wide variety of plan choices made available to employees and annuitants and the opportunity for federal and postal employees to carry their coverage into retirement with the full government contribution if they carry enrollment as an active employee for the five years preceding employment.

Sen. Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus will begin to mark up his healthcare reform proposal at open executive session of the Finance Committee on Tuesday morning. The New York Times and the Politico report on the 568 amendments to that proposal which alread have been proposed. The amendments and the proposal can be downloaded at this Senate Finance Committee website.

Modern Healthcare reports that "The Health Insurance Industry Antitrust Enforcement Act of 2009, [a bill recently] introduced in Congress] by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), stipulate that nothing in [a] 64-year-old [federal] law [the McCarran Ferguson Act] should be construed to allow health insurers or medical malpractice insurers to “engage in any form of price fixing, bid rigging or market allocations.” The bill in the House is numbered H.R. 3596. Business Insurance notes that

The insurance industry has traditionally opposed legislation repealing the
exemption, which allows insurers to pool historic loss information so that they
are better able to project future losses and charge an actuarially based price
for their products. It also allows for joint development of policy forms. The
act does not, however, exempt insurers from state antitrust laws, which
explicitly prohibit insurers and any other businesses from conspiring to fix
prices or otherwise restrict competition. Also under the act, insurers remain
subject to rate and form regulation in every state.