TALLAHASSEE – In a year when the Legislature has to trim an estimated $2.5 billion to balance the state budget, a House leader says he needs up to $8 million for a new software system that would let Floridians shop online for basic health insurance.
               

Rep. Aaron Bean, who chairs the House committee in charge of health and human services spending, said the system is one of the keys to the health care reform plan he will pursue this session. But he knows this plan is a hard sell.

 

“It’s going to be a challenge,” Bean said. “This is going to be competing with other things we have to buy in health care.”

 

Financing the initiative may not be his only obstacle. Bean’s plan is already drawing scrutiny from those in the health insurance business and fellow lawmakers.

 

Bean’s Healthcare Council met with four other health-related committees for more than an hour on Tuesday discussing the approach to lowering Florida’s growing uninsured population.  The audience included staff from the governor’s office, insurance and health care associations and the Office of Insurance Regulation, but no public testimony was taken.

 

Bean, a Republican from Fernandina Beach, wants to develop a virtual marketplace where employers are relieved from the burden of administering health plans and employees are allowed to choose the coverage they want. Moreover, people could take the coverage with them when they leave their job. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, is credited with the idea.

 

Mary Beth Senkewicz, deputy insurance commissioner for life and health from the Office of Insurance Regulation, said Bean’s plan differs from the Heritage proposal in at least two ways. First, he would take away all “mandates” – legally required minimum benefits – while the Heritage Foundation retains some.

 

Second, Bean would drop the state’s financial oversight for insurance companies and managed care plans if they bought a performance and payment bond. To Senkewicz, whose office now regulates insurers, that “is a little frightening.”

 

Bean said the virtual marketplace would be open to all Floridians who work for a firm that is willing to join it. While the company might have to pay a user fee,  it would not be required to contribute to the worker’s health coverage and there would be no minimum percentage of the work force required for participation.

 

Jim Bracher, vice president of the Florida Association of Health Plans, said that eliminating those requirements “is going to be a concern.” If only one employee participates, it will likely be the one whose health is at greatest risk, he reasoned.

 

Senkewicz and Bracher were also concerned that there would be one set of rules  inside Bean’s marketplace and another in the traditional group market, where plans are required to cover 51 state mandates and meet solvency requirements.  Senkewicz said this  “parallel universe” could cause trouble.

 

Rep. Susan Bucher, a Democrat from West Palm Beach, said she has concerns that consumers wouldn’t get adequate information about plans before making a choice. She noted that beneficiaries in the Medicaid pilot project in Ft. Lauderdale and Jacksonville have received flawed information. “It’s been very confusing and people have had to switch plans all over the place,” she said.