qotd: Is NAIC agreement on medical loss ratios in patients' interests?

Politico

August 17, 2010

Commissioners OK health rate plan

By Sarah Kliff

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners approved Tuesday morning (by a unanimous vote) a preliminary outline of what insurers will be able to count as medical costs, a document necessitated by the health reform bill's requirement that insurers spend at least 85 percent of subscriber premiums on medical costs in the large group market and 80 percent for small group and individual plans.

While insurance commissioners moved forward unanimously, familiar fault lines emerged between consumer advocates and industry over the document and how it categorizes medical spending.

"In general, we are very pleased," said NAIC consumer advocate Timothy Jost, a professor of health policy at Washington & Lee University. "The process has been very open and participatory. We feel like our concerns have been listened to."

"The NAIC is conducting a transparent and thorough process as it develops the [medical loss ratio] MLR definition, but the current proposal could have the unintended consequence of turning back the clock on efforts to improve patient safety, enhance the quality of care and fight fraud," AHIP president Karen Ignagni said in a statement.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41179.html

NAIC approved reporting form (blank):

http://www.naic.org/documents/index_health_reform_mlr_blanks_proposal.pdf

Letter from AHIP's Karen Ignagni:

http://www.politico.com/static/PPM153_ahip_081510.html

Comment:  The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has finally come to agreement on the reporting form that likely will be used to determine whether or not the private insurers are in compliance with the required medical loss ratios (MLRs). The agreement is being reported as a victory for health care consumers and a defeat for the private insurance industry, but this ignores the crucial overriding issue.

The debate was over how much of their administrative costs the private insurers would be able to pass off as quality improvements that could be classified as medical expenses. Such reclassifications would allow the insurers to spend more for other non-medical purposes such as marketing and profits. Much of their attempted overreach - some described in Karen Ignagni's letter - was rejected.

This is not a victory for the health care consumer. We are still stuck with a middleman industry that has been granted the right to keep 15 to 20 percent of our premium dollars to use for their own purposes. Congress and the President rejected a model of reform - an improved Medicare for all - that would have eliminated much of this waste plus the waste of the excess administrative burden that the insurers place on physicians and hospitals. The insurers get to include the latter as medical costs, further padding their margins, but administrative waste doesn't benefit anyone's health.

With all of the attention being given to the details of implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), too many have forgotten about the fact that the financing model in PPACA is irreparably flawed and can never bring us affordable health care for everyone. Instead of frittering away our efforts in the peripheral skirmishes, we need to pull together and win this war.