AUGUSTA, Maine — The Republican-controlled Maine Senate passed a bill Thursday that avoids setting up a health insurance exchange as outlined in the federal Affordable Care Act.
LD 1497 delays any action until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on constitutional challenges of the federal health care reform law. If the law is upheld, the bill says only licensed insurance brokers can enroll people in health plans through an exchange.
The bill requires fingerprinting and licensing of consumer advocates, or “navigators,” who are supposed to help people obtain affordable health insurance.
All 19 Republicans voted for the bill. The 15 Senate Democrats and independent Sen. Dick Woodbury of Yarmouth opposed. The bill passed in a similarly narrow and partisan vote in the House late last month.
Sen. Rodney Whittemore, R-Skowhegan, said the bill creates a mechanism for people to find cheaper health care.
“If we had done something now and part of the law gets repealed, we will have created an exchange that isn’t valid,” he said.
Democrats disagreed.
“This do-nothing bill misses an opportunity for Maine to improve access to health care for Maine people,” said Sen. Joe Brannigan of Portland, who also serves on the Insurance and Financial Affairs Committee. “I guess my Republican colleagues would rather leave these choices to the feds instead of giving a greater voice to Maine.”
Health insurance exchanges are designed to make health insurance more affordable by serving as marketplaces for businesses and consumers to shop for health plans. Under the Affordable Care Act, states are required to set up the exchanges by 2014.
A Democratic bill, LD 1498, would have done just that in Maine but it failed to generate wide support in the Insurance and Financial Services Committee last month. That bill narrowly failed in the House on Wednesday.
Instead, Republicans on the insurance committee approved LD 1497 and sent that bill forward for a vote.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jonathan McKane, R-Newcastle, said last month he wouldn’t be “complicit” in the federal Affordable Care Act’s implementation.
“I personally don’t believe in the Affordable Care Act,” he said. “I don’t see how adding more bureaucracy to an already overburdened system of bureaucracy now is going to help things. What I do know is that the costs, although very, very high already, we’re still not sure of.”
Rep. Sharon Treat, D-Hallowell, who sponsored LD 1498, said Maine is wrong to delay setting up something that could help people save money on insurance.
“I just don’t think closing our eyes and hoping the whole thing goes away is really a responsible solution to what is a huge issue in this state and all over this country, which is thousands of people who do not have health insurance, who do not have access to care,” she said.
Twenty-six states, including Maine, are challenging as unconstitutional the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that nearly all Americans purchase health insurance by 2014 or pay a penalty.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the challenge last month and is expected to issue its ruling in June.
As of last month, 13 states, including Vermont and Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia, already had set up their exchanges, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Most other states still are studying their options.
States that fail to set up their own exchanges will have to hand the reins over to the federal government, but LD 1497 ensures that doesn’t happen.
Last November, Maine won $6 million from the federal government to begin designing its exchange. That money likely will have to be returned without the creation of an exchange, although Whittemore said Maine technically never had the money.
Also on Thursday, in a similar party-line vote, the Senate approved LD 1702, An Act to Correct Inconsistencies and Ambiguities in the Maine Guaranteed Access Reinsurance Association Act.
This bill, among other things, allows the Reinsurance Association that was created under Public Law 90 to hold closed meetings without public notice, although the information would later be made public. The association determines rate increases for the reinsurance pool.
“It is stunning to me that we are afraid of transparency,” said Sen. Phil Bartlett, D-Gorham. “Handing more power and money to the insurance companies without public oversight flies in the face of what is best for Maine people.”
Follow BDN reporter Eric Russell on Twitter @BDNPolitics.
“Under the Affordable Care Act, states are required to set up the exchanges by 2014.”
With all the hullabaloo surrounding the ACA (the upcoming SCOTUS decision and further implementation of the law by the feds), it seems silly to set up the exchanges this early. Simply waiting until there is more information will probably be the most efficient way to go about this. It seems like Eric Russell is just trying to make this into a bigger deal than it is, because this seems pretty logical.
And again we see the GOP and the Tea Party doing all they can to stall the inevitable. Folk’s, you can stall all you want but the ACA is coming, even if SCOTUS rules against it. It’s just gonna’ come out as the ACHA in another form and we all know it. That Maine’s GOP-controlled Senate is stalling also tells me that the current insurance carrier here, namely Anthem, is almost paniced over this ACA Exchange being created. It means, for them, the end of a near monopoly on the insurance market they’ve had and that they are gonna have to face OPEN COMPETITION for the first time (Gee, aren’t Republican’s and TP’rs all for open market competition ? ) and that the end is in sight for those GOP folk’s who have been receiving huge amounts of campaign contributions from the insurance industry to KEEP OUT OTHER COMPETITOR’S that threaten the current monopoly ‘stranglehold’ on the market here in Maine.
And for those of you who are so determined to kill the ACA think of this. If ACA goes under then the only other option that’s ready to go, right now, that is more SCOTUS-proofed than the ACA is Public Option (Universal Single Payer). People, ACA / USP / PO. it’s coming. No matter what you want to call it, or try to make it out to be, it’s coming. And the sooner the better given that a huge number of people, nationwide, are all suffering and going thru bankruptcy’s due to insanely huge medical bill’s, which is what caused all of this in the first place. Contribute options and changes all you can but do you really want to start seeing people die simply because someone’s life is dependent on a bank balance ? That, my friend’s, is what you’re gonna have to ask yourself in the mirror tomorrow morning and live with it.
Excellent post!
If health insurance exchanges are a good idea, and conservatives seem to think they are, why not get them started whether the ACA is ruled unconstitutional or not? Exchanges are seen as a market-based influence on more affordable insurance. Isn’t that what conservatives like?
If the Supreme Court strikes down the ACA, it will be mostly because of the mandate. But forbidding states from allowing businesses to operate within a state can’t possibly be unconstitutional.
Exchanges=a way for small businesses and individuals to buy health care without having to pay higher rates because they aren’t a big group. Who gains from stopping this? Insurance companies and big businesses. Who loses? Small businesses, people who live outside of big cities. Maine.
Exchange planning is underway in several states. What kinds
of real-world questions are states considering?
http://www.healthcaretownhall.com/?p=4008