Nonini suggests Idaho insurance firms could fund exchange with their reserves
The House Business Committee has voted 14-3 along party lines to pass HCR 45, a resolution from Rep. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d'Alene, declaring that if Idaho health insurance companies want a health insurance exchange, they should start and fund one themselves. "I think the resolution should encourage the insurance industry to do their own," Nonini told the committee. "Blue Cross, I know that they're sitting on about $330 million in reserve. I would hope they would find it in their generosity to put up some of their reserve money to do the exchange, so the state taxpayers wouldn't have to do it."
Rep. John Rusche, D-Lewiston, a retired physician and former insurance executive, said Nonini's resolution "boggles the mind" and "just doesn't make logical sense." The purpose of a health insurance exchange, he noted, is not only to provide a shopping portal for insurance policies, but to integrate with state Medicaid eligibility and eligibility for health insurance subsidies under the new federal health care reform law. He questioned the resolution's wording, saying, "It just boggles the mind to say you turn it over to the feds rather than doing it as a state-run entity, but that demonstrates your sovereignty over health insurance matters. It just doesn't make logical sense." He noted under the federal law, if Idaho doesn't establish a federal exchange, the federal government will set one up for the state.
Rep. Frank Henderson, R-Post Falls, called the resolution "a concept worthy of debate," and said, "That's a debate that I feel this legislature seriously needs to be engaged in." Rep. Jim Guthrie, R-McCammon, said his concern about a state-run health insurance exchange "is the cost that the bureaucracy itself would eat up." Idaho Freedom Foundation lobbyist Wayne Hoffman told the committee, "It doesn't do much," other that "put the Legislature on the record" as backing free markets. He urged support for the resolution on that basis. Only the panel's three Democrats dissented, and the measure now will move to the full House.
