MINNEAPOLIS, Oct. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Minnesota Congressmen Jim Ramstad and Martin Sabo, and UnitedHealth Group Chairman and CEO William McGuire are among featured speakers who will address the annual conference of the National Association of State Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans (NASCHIP) held in Minneapolis this week.
The NASCHIP meeting will be held at the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis from October 20th through 22nd. NASCHIP is made up of all of the state health insurance access programs, commonly called high-risk health insurance pools. The state risk pools serve people with chronic illnesses like diabetes, cancer, multiple sclerosis, heart disease and others who have difficulty obtaining health insurance due to a pre-existing condition.
The meeting is being hosted by the Minnesota Comprehensive Health Association (MCHA) and the Minnesota-based, national rural non-profit group Communicating for Agriculture and the Self-Employed (CA), which has supported risk pools and programs to expand access to affordable health insurance.
Several additional prominent national health care leaders and technical experts are on the agenda, including:
-- Alice Burton, director of the State Coverage Initiatives program
at the AcademyHealth in Washington, D.C., speaking about state efforts
across the country to address the uninsured.
-- Roy Ramthun, the Bush administration's senior health policy official
at the U.S. Treasury Department, who will speak about the new Health
Savings Accounts.
-- Janet Stokes Trautwein, head of government affairs for the National
Association of Health Underwriters in Washington, D.C. will give an
update on federal health care legislation and a comparison of the
Presidential election health care proposals.
-- Kurt Giesa, director of the Mercer Oliver Wyman health care consulting
group in Milwaukee, WI will address "The Looming Early Retiree Health
Care Crisis", driven by more corporate cutbacks of health coverage
that is sending more people on their own to the individual market.
-- Three technical sessions will be devoted to evaluating and
understanding the latest techniques of disease management programs.
There are now 33 states that have established risk pool access programs. West Virginia is the newest program, passed by its state legislature in 2004. The programs offer comprehensive major medical coverage to eligible individuals who have been turned down for private insurance coverage due to a pre-existing health condition, or who have been rated-up due to a pre-existing condition, or have portability guarantees, or a recognized chronic illness. They typically pay somewhat more for risk pool coverage, but rates are capped by law, and all of the programs must be subsidized either through insurance industry assessments, state government funding, or a combination of industry and public funding. Risk pools serve to guarantee access, but also to manage and spread the risks of insuring high-cost individuals, providing more stability to the individual market and reducing uncompensated care for health care providers.
McGuire will address issues facing the future of America's health insurance system in a keynote address Thursday morning.
Rep. Ramstad, R-MN, a member of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, will speak Friday morning about prospects for health care legislation in the new Congress.
Rep. Sabo, D-MN, the luncheon speaker on Thursday, Oct. 21, will be honored for his role as one of the authors and supporters of the legislation to establish the Minnesota Comprehensive Health Association in 1976, when he served as speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives. MCHA is one of the two oldest state risk pools, both established that year.
MCHA is far and away the largest state risk pool, currently insuring more than 33,000 Minnesotans with chronic health conditions. Since it was started, MCHA is estimated to have served more than 250,000 Minnesotans purchasing insurance for a period of time in the individual market.
According to the newest annual directory of risk pools -- published by CA and first released at this conference -- there were more than 180,000 people insured by the all of the state risk pools in operation nationally in 2003. Total combined claims topped $1.25 billion. Premiums earned were over $793 million, and normal deficit subsidies required topped $535 million.
For more information about NASCHIP and details of the conference costs and agenda go to http://www.naschip.org/ .
National Association of State Comprehensive Health Insurance PlanCONTACT: Bruce Abbe for NASCHIP, +1-952-746-6612
Web site: http://www.naschip.org/