Reform: The Health Exchange Idea

I am very curious about why, in all the media coverage of the health reform debate and drama, why aren't we hearing more about another significant part of most proposals -- the Health Exchange approach? This is was one of the key pieces of President Obama's campaign platform. Variations of it are in his proposal, the House proposal, the Senate Finance Committee proposal, and even the Former Majority Leaders (Senators Howard Baker, Tom Daschle and Bob Dole)

The essence of the Exchange is that private insurance companies would offer plans under the Exchange that were more affordable and more accountable in terms of premium rates, costs, pre-existing conditions and that they cannot drop you because you become ill. Accountability is one of the biggest needs in insurance reform, and the Exchange idea helps promote that and more affordability for middle-class individuals and families.

This is a supplement to a public option that allows private insurance companies to stay competitive, to be included in reform instead of shut out of it by solely a public option, and yet holds them significantly more accountable.

This makes sense to me.

For more information, go to http://www.kff.org/healthreform/7908.cfm and from there, you can download a PDF file of a Brief on the topic of Health Exchanges.

You can also go to their Side-by-Side Comparison of Proposals, select the proposals you want to compare, and then click on the issue of “changes to private insurance” to see at least some of what each proposal says.