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67–813 2012

MAKING HEALTHCARE WORK FOR AMERICAN 

FAMILIES: ENSURING AFFORDABLE COVERAGE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HEALTH 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND 

COMMERCE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MARCH 17, 2009 

Serial No. 111–16 

( 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce 

energycommerce.house.gov 


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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE 

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman 

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan 

Chairman Emeritus 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey 

BART GORDON, Tennessee 

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois 

ANNA G. ESHOO, California 

BART STUPAK, Michigan 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

Vice Chairman 

LOIS CAPPS, California 

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

JANE HARMAN, California 

TOM ALLEN, Maine 

JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois 

HILDA L. SOLIS, California 

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas 

JAY INSLEE, Washington 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

JIM MATHESON, Utah 

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina 

CHARLIE MELANCON, Louisiana 

JOHN BARROW, Georgia 

BARON P. HILL, Indiana 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, Virgin Islands 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

BETTY SUTTON, Ohio 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

Ranking Member 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

FRED UPTON, Michigan 

CLIFF STEARNS, Florida 

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia 

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

ROY BLUNT, Missouri 

STEVE BUYER, Indiana 

GEORGE RADANOVICH, California 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

MARY BONO MACK, California 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

LEE TERRY, Nebraska 

MIKE ROGERS, Michigan 

SUE WILKINS MYRICK, North Carolina 

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 

PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

(II) 


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(III) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HEALTH

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey, Chairman 

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan 

BART GORDON, Tennessee 

ANNA G. ESHOO, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

LOIS CAPPS, California 

JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

JIM MATHESON, Utah 

JANE HARMAN, California 

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas 

JOHN BARROW, Georgia 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, Virgin Islands 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio 

BETTY SUTTON, Ohio 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia, 

Ranking Member 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming 

HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

STEVE BUYER, Indiana 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

MARY BONO MACK, California 

MIKE FERGUSON, New Jersey 

MIKE ROGERS, Michigan 

SUE WILKINS MYRICK, North Carolina 

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 


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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the State of 

New Jersey, opening statement .......................................................................... 1 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 3 

Hon. Nathan Deal, a Representative in Congress from the State of Georgia, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 5 

Hon. Anna G. Eshoo, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, opening statement .................................................................................... 5 

Hon. Gene Green, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 6 

Hon. Lois Capps, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 7 

Hon. John D. Dingell, a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, opening statement ....................................................................................... 8 

Hon. Joseph R. Pitts, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth 

of Pennsylvania, opening statement ................................................................... 9 

Hon. Michael C. Burgess, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Texas, opening statement .................................................................................... 10 

Hon. Marsha Blackburn, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Tennessee, opening statement ............................................................................ 11 

Hon. Phil Gingrey, a Representative in Congress from the State of Georgia, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 11 

Hon. Kathy Castor, a Representative in Congress from the State of Florida, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 12 

Hon. Betty Sutton, a Representative in Congress from the State of Ohio, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 12 

Hon. Tammy Baldwin, a Representative in Congress from the State of Wisconsin, opening statement ................................................................................... 13 

Hon. Tim Murphy, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth 

of Pennsylvania, opening statement ................................................................... 13 

Hon. Jim Matheson, a Representative in Congress from the State of Utah, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 14 

Hon. Joe Barton, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, 

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 153 

Hon. Roy Blunt, a Representative in Congress from the State of Missouri, 

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 158 

Hon. Henry A. Waxman, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

California, prepared statement ........................................................................... 160 

WITNESSES

Uwe Reinhardt, Ph.D., Professor of Political Economy, Economics and Public 

Affairs, Princeton University .............................................................................. 15 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 18 

Sally C. Pipes, B.A., President and Chief Executive Officer, Pacific Research 

Institute ................................................................................................................ 31 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 33 

Judy Feder, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress Action Fund 36 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 38 

Mila Kofman, J.D., Superintendent of Insurance, State of Maine Bureau 

of Insurance .......................................................................................................... 92 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 95 

Jon Kingsdale, Ph.D., Executive Director, Commonwealth Health Insurance 

Connector Authority ............................................................................................ 100 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 103 


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VI 

Karen Pollitz, M.P.P., Research Professor, Georgetown University Health Policy Institute .......................................................................................................... 107 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 109 

Katherine Baicker, Ph.D., Professor of Health Economics, Harvard School 

of Public Health .................................................................................................... 116 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 119 

Edmund F. Haislmaier, B.A., Senior Research Fellow, Center for Health 

Policy Studies with the Heritage Foundation .................................................... 128 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 130 


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MAKING HEALTHCARE WORK FOR AMERICAN 

FAMILIES: ENSURING AFFORDABLE COVERAGE 

TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2009 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HEALTH, 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:15 a.m., in room 

2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Frank Pallone, 

Jr. (chairman) presiding. 

Members present: Representatives Pallone, Dingell, Eshoo, 

Green, DeGette, Capps, Schakowsky, Baldwin, Weiner, Matheson, 

Harman, Gonzalez, Barrow, Christensen, Castor, Murphy, Sutton, 

Braley, Waxman (ex officio), Deal, Whitfield, Shimkus, Shadegg, 

Blunt, Pitts, Rogers, Burgess, Blackburn, Gingrey, and Barton (ex 

officio). 

Staff present: Phil Barnett, Staff Director; Karen Nelson, Deputy 

Staff Director for Health; Karen Lightfoot, Communications Director; Purvee Kempf, Counsel; Tim Gronniger, Professional Staff 

Member; Bobby Clark, Senior Political Analyst; Jon Donenberg, 

Health Fellow; Virgil Miller, Legislative Assistant; Caren 

Auchman, Communications Associate; Alli Corr, Special Assistant; 

Alvin Banks, Special Assistant; Caitlin Sanders, Staff Assistant; 

Brandon Clark, Professional Staff; Marie Fishpaw, Professional 

Staff; Clay Alspach, Counsel; Chad Grant, Legislative Analyst; and 

Aarti Shah, Counsel. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, JR., A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY 

Mr. PALLONE. The subcommittee hearing is called to order. Good 

morning and welcome to our witnesses on the first panel. This is 

a second in our series of hearings on health reform. Today the subcommittee will examine issues surrounding the affordability of 

health coverage. 

Now more than ever securing quality health care coverage at an 

affordable price is not possible for millions of American families. 

First and foremost, health insurance has become too expensive. As 

health insurance premiums continue to outpace wages every year, 

people can no longer expect to pay a reasonable price for health 

coverage. 


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And as we talk about health care reform, we have to ask ourselves what should we expect to pay for health care coverage and 

what should that coverage include. Cheap plans that offer little 

protection, such as high deductible plans, are not a solution in my 

opinion. We need real reform that makes quality health care coverage affordable to every American, and in order to do that, we 

need to change the rules which govern the way people obtain 

health care coverage, particularly within the individual market. 

I am particularly interested to hear from our witnesses today 

about new ideas like a health exchange or connector, similar to the 

one in Massachusetts, a public plan option, and an individual mandate that can help provide individual’s access to affordable options 

for meaningful coverage. 

I also think it is important that, as we talk about making coverage on the individual market more affordable, we don’t do anything to disrupt the affordability of coverage in other sectors. There 

was talk last week and in the media about eliminating or cutting 

back on the tax exclusion for health benefits offered by employers. 

This was an idea promoted by former President George Bush and 

was a key component of Senator McCain’s health care proposal 

during his presidential campaign, but obviously this is controversial as well. 

The employer market is already declining. It is becoming increasingly difficult for both employers and employees to afford health 

care coverage, and eliminating those tax incentives may further exacerbate the affordability problems we already face with employersponsored insurance and not necessarily do anything to improve 

the affordability of coverage in the individual market. 

Again these are all issues that I think we need to discuss. Looking at places like Massachusetts, public plan options, individual 

mandates, and the tax exclusion for health benefits. Not that I am 

taking a position on any of those right now, but I think these are 

important things that we have to look at. 

I want to thank our witnesses again for being here today. I know 

we have a very distinguished panel. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pallone follows:] 


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Mr. PALLONE. And I will now call on Mr. Deal for opening statements, and then we will have opening statements from other members, both Democrat and Republican. Thank you. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. NATHAN DEAL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF GEORGIA 

Mr. DEAL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding the 

hearing today, and thanks to the witnesses for being here, and I 

believe we have two panels of them. So we are going to be here a 

while, I suppose. 

Obviously as we broach this subject of how to reform the health 

delivery system in this country, it is a difficult task and one that 

has many facets to it. Dr. Reinhardt, I was interested in reading 

your article that appeared back in January in the ‘‘New York 

Times’’ on the question of pricing. 

As you probably know, this is an issue that has been important 

to me in the area of transparency of pricing. It is probably one of 

the most difficult issues to understand and try to get a handle on. 

We have so much difference in pricing of health care of services in 

this country that it is, in fact, I think, one of those issues we have 

to begin to wrestle with if we are going to decide how we are going 

to approach the delivery of health care because pricing obviously 

has a lot to do with it. 

I look forward to the testimony of the witnesses. There are a lot 

of issues that we have not talked about in previous hearings, and 

I am sure that these two panels today will broach some of those 

subjects that we have yet to explore. And thank you for being here, 

and I look forward to your testimony. I yield back. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, Mr. Deal. The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Eshoo. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ANNA G. ESHOO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Ms. ESHOO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding not only today’s hearing but the series that you have planned as we work to 

bring health care to every American. 

One of the biggest problems in health coverage is including those 

who are left out of group coverage and must purchase insurance in 

the private market. These very same people not only face tougher 

access and higher cost issues, but they are also taxed on these 

plans. 

Any individual who receives coverage through their employer 

gets their plan tax-free. I think it is very important that everyone 

has the option to buy into a group plan that would mitigate costs 

and not discriminate based on pre-existing conditions. We don’t 

want to upset the health insurance for people who have it and who 

like it. We want to expand affordable comprehensive health care 

options to those who don’t or those who want better coverage. 

So I look forward to our very distinguished panel’s testimony 

today, and I hope we are able to discuss the tax treatment of 

health insurance and how we might address that as well. Thank 

you. 


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Mr. PALLONE. Ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Barton. 

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have an excellent 

statement that my staff has prepared. I am going to submit it for 

the record, but in the interest of time, I am going to just submit 

it. 

The main thing that is in the statement that I think we need to 

put before yourself and the members of the committee is that the 

Republicans do want to work in a bipartisan fashion this year. We 

are willing to work with you and the full committee chairman and 

other members on the majority side to enact comprehensive health 

care reform if it really is reform. 

So this is not an issue where we are going to try to rope-a-dope 

the committee. We are prepared to work if it is something that is 

in the middle and can be done and maintain the private health 

care plans of Americans. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Barton appears on page 153.] 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, Mr. Barton. I appreciate what you 

said, and I think it is crucial that we work in a bipartisan fashion. 

And that is certainly our intention. Thank you. The gentleman 

from Texas, Mr. Green. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GENE GREEN, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you for 

holding this second hearing on health care reform. Our state of 

Texas has the unfortunate distinction of having the largest number 

of uninsured in the United States, nearly 5.4 million Texans or 25 

percent of the population in Texas without health insurance coverage, and nearly 1.4 million children are uninsured. Of that 1.4 

million, 900,000 children in Texas are S–CHIP eligible. 

We need a national system designed so that every American 

should be covered, either employer-based plan, an individual plan, 

or a public plan no matter what state they live. The largest rate 

of growth in the uninsured and underinsured are middle class families who make too much to qualify for public plans but don’t make 

enough money to pay costly premiums under the private plans, and 

those who work in low-wage jobs without employer-based insurance. 

Ultimately, the large number of uninsured Americans create a 

vicious cycle by driving up health care costs which increases the 

number of people who can’t afford insurance. 

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to have the remainder 

of my statement be placed in the record. 

Mr. PALLONE. Without objection, so ordered, and thank you. The 

gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Whitfield. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you, Chairman Pallone, and I am going 

to waive an opening statement. 

Mr. PALLONE. Next is the gentlewoman from Colorado, our full 

committee vice chair, Ms. DeGette. Mr. Shimkus. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too am excited about 

getting into this debate, basically how do we make sure we get insurance for those who have no insurance. So my focus has always 

been affordable, portable, and access. I do believe that the marketVerDate Mar 15 2010 23:52 Mar 23, 2012 Jkt 067813 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A813.XXX A813

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based system, which encourages price transparency and shopping 

around is the best method. I do fear a government backstop plan 

of action which the government controls, and I am deadly in opposition to a one-payer system, which I hope we don’t segue into 

when this fight really gets going. I do not want bureaucrats picking 

health care decisions in the end. 

So having said that, it is great to be back on this committee. As 

I said, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working with you. I yield 

back. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Our subcommittee vice chair, Ms. 

Capps. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LOIS CAPPS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Ms. CAPPS. Thank you, Chairman Pallone. Since today’s hearing 

is about ensuring affordable coverage, I want to quickly set the 

stage with a story about my constituent, Terry Terpin. Her story 

was featured in the Ventura County Star yesterday, and I would 

like unanimous consent to enter the article for the record. 

She, like so many others, recently lost her job when her employer 

filed for bankruptcy. Unfortunately, Terry had just been diagnosed 

with a relapse of cancer only a month earlier. COBRA would have 

cost her well over $500 a month, so she applied for coverage in the 

individual market but never heard back because of her pre-existing 

condition. 

Luckily, Ventura County has a wonderful public health system 

where she was able to get access to oncology treatment. Not everybody lives in a community that provides that backup. At the bottom line is that patients shouldn’t have to switch providers in the 

middle of treatment because they lose their job. 

So I look forward to discussing today how we can improve access 

to affordable coverage for everyone. I yield back. 

Mr. PALLONE. Gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Blunt. 

Mr. BLUNT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a statement for 

the record. I do look forward to working with you and with Mr. 

Deal and the subcommittee to find a solution to this question of affordability. 

I think we can find common sense solutions. In fact, the Medicare Part D program that has been in place now for several years 

is an example of a program where, for the first time, the government organized a private, competitive-driven system rather than 

try to operate a system. The cost is lower. Satisfaction is higher. 

Seniors have more options. In fact, competition works, and it puts 

patients and health care providers in control. 

There is no government-run program offered under Medicare 

Part D, and in fact, there is no government run plan offered for 

members of Congress or any other federal employee. And I think 

there is a good reason for that. People want choices, and choices 

bring greater satisfaction. I look forward to the testimony today, 

Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Blunt appears on page 158.] 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. The chairman emeritus, Mr. Dingell. 


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OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN D. DINGELL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN 

Mr. DINGELL. Thank you for your courtesy. I commend you for 

this hearing. First of all, this is an important hearing on affordable 

coverage. Addressing affordability is a crucial piece of health care 

reform debate. This hearing will help guide us in our future deliberations. 

The amount that workers pay for health insurance has greatly 

outpaced the rate of inflation and certainly has risen faster than 

stagnant wages and incomes. The statistics are frightening. The 

share of family income spent on health insurance increased from 

7.3 percent in 1987 to 16.8 percent in 2006. In 2006, one-fifth of 

the nation spent more than 10 percent of their income on out-ofpocket medical expenses. 

In 2007, 69 percent of the people who went without medical care 

or delayed needed medical care cited worries about cost, a 3.8 percentage increase from 2003. The average cost of employer-based 

family insurance policy in 2008 was $12,680, an amount almost 

equal to the annual earnings of a full-time minimum wage job. 

It is not just the uninsured population that suffers from the high 

cost of health care. More than 42 million people with health insurance report having problems paying medical bills. Of those who 

face medical bankruptcies, almost three-quarters had health insurance at the time of the illness that left them financially unstable. 

Without any action, the expected cost of full family employer health insurance will increase to more than $24,000 in 2016, and 

the average deductible will reach nearly $2,700. This means that 

in only seven years, almost half of American households will spend 

more than one-third of their income on health insurance. 

It comes as no surprise to anyone that families are literally going 

bankrupt. The high cost of health care causes a bankruptcy every 

30 seconds. At the end of the year, it will cost 1.5 millions the 

homes which they cherish. Furthermore, as health care costs dominate budgets, families will have less to spend on food, education, 

and necessities. 

As we continue the debate, we must ensure that every American 

has coverage, but we can’t stop there. Increasing costs alone will 

get us nowhere if we don’t find ways to reduce the cost of health 

insurance and health care delivery as a whole. 

Access to health insurance does not mean that individuals can 

utilize available services. They are also kept out of the circle of 

care due to high premiums, deductibles, and other out-of-pocket 

costs. I look forward to working with my colleagues and working 

with the leadership here and the administration. There are a number of worthy options being debated. I think public option is something that should be seriously considered as we move forward on 

health reform. While we have not decided the specifics of what a 

public option should look like, I believe that such option must be 

affordable, and it must have suitable benefits. And it must provide 

healthy competition in the marketplace. 

Insurance market has a nasty habit of gaming the system, of 

building barriers to affordable coverage, of excluding coverage all 

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er premiums for certain individuals, cherry picking, and other 

games that make insurance unavailable to our people. 

I am confident if we weigh our options with an eye towards the 

end goal of providing quality coverage for Americans, we can pass 

a reform that benefits all of our Americans. We must do so because 

the consequences of not doing so are terrifying. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, Chairman Dingell. Next is the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Pitts. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOSEPH R. PITTS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH 

OF PENNSYLVANIA 

Mr. PITTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this hearing. 

Recently the Pennsylvania Insurance Department released a survey of Pennsylvania health insurance. Let me just share a couple 

of results. Overall in 2008, 15.3 percent of Pennsylvanians did not 

get some type of needed medical care during the past 12 months 

due to its cost. This represents about 1.9 million residents. Currently 8.2 percent of Pennsylvania residents are uninsured. That is 

about a little over one million residents. 

According to the survey, the cost of health insurance remains the 

primary barrier to coverage. I believe any health reform plan must 

contain several key principles to empower the consumer. Among 

them, in-tax policies that discriminate against an individual who 

purchases private health insurance on their own rather than 

through their employers make it easier to de-couple health insurance from employers. Those who own their coverage should be able 

to take their plan with them with they change jobs or quit working 

and one they can take to another state. They should be able to buy 

from another state. Also risk-pooling within a state or across state 

plans. People should be able to choose the plan and doctors and 

services they want. And insurance and providers are accountable to 

them, not their employer or government bureaucrats. 

The bottom like is privately owned health insurance will lead to 

competition among plans, lower costs, higher quality, more choices, 

and more transparency. I thank all the witnesses for testifying, 

look forward to hearing their thoughts, and yield back my time. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. The gentlewoman from Chicago, Ms. 

Schakowsky. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will put my entire statement in the record, but I wanted to make a couple of 

points. One, this debate about cost should not be about providing 

access to health insurance. It must be about providing access to 

health care. Too many insured Americans find that having an insurance policy is no guarantee that they or a loved one will be able 

to afford care when they need it. 

And finally I want to point to a new report by the Illinois Main 

Street Alliance in which 56 percent of small business owners in the 

state support a choice between a public insurance option and a private option. Those are the small businesses in our state. 

And finally, Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit for the record 

a report from the Institute for America’s Future, Massachusetts 

Health Reform, Near Universal Coverage but No Cost Controls or 


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Guarantee of Quality Affordable Health Care For All, if I may submit it for the record. 

Mr. PALLONE. Without objection, so ordered. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. PALLONE. Next is the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Burgess. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL C. BURGESS, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was astonished a couple weeks ago to be invited to the White House to a forum. I still 

haven’t figured that out, but I was grateful to be there, and I heard 

the President observe that he just wants to figure out what works. 

And I am certainly prepared to help him. 

Now, I always get a little bit discouraged on these panels and 

discussions. We end up talking a lot about cost and coverage. After 

all, as a physician, I can tell you it is about taking care of people 

in the final analysis. 

One of the things the President also told us was that the status 

quo is not an option. I would also observe that very little is static 

in the field of medicine, and in fact, in the 15 years since the last 

major attempt at reform was undertaken, medicine has changed 

drastically. 

Now, the President wants to figure out what works. We are going 

to hear a lot of about former Governor Romney’s proposal in Massachusetts that has now had a couple of years to go through a couple of iterations. It is a bold experiment. It deals with a connector. 

It deals with mandates. But maybe we should also look at WalMart, which in the past four years now, covers without mandates 

95 percent of its employees with affordable coverage. If we want to 

learn from what works, maybe we ought to include that in our 

broad-based discussion. 

You know you look at the cost increases. It was referenced by 

former Chairman Dingell, the cost for indemnity insurance, PPO. 

In fact Medicare and Medicaid all are going up in excess of 7 percent a year. 

Look at consumer-directed health plans though, and they are rising at a rate of a little over 2 percent a year. It seems to me it 

would make sense that if we are going to deal with issues of cost 

and coverage, we would give a close look to those things that are 

working particularly how Wal-Mart has provided affordable coverage to its employees and how consumer-directed health plans 

have held the line on cost increases. I will yield back the balance 

of my time. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Gentlewoman from California, Ms. 

Harman. 

Ms. HARMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Health care reform 

can’t wait. It is an integral part of any economic recovery strategy, 

and I think it is very good news that both the Obama Administration, this Congress, and this committee know that. 

Let me just make three brief points. First I am new to this subcommittee but not new to this issue, and I welcome the opportunity 

to be a player at some level as we craft legislation. 

Second, I urge that all of the expertise on this committee, starting with our chairman emeritus, but including every other member 


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of the committee, Democrat and Republican, be tapped as we draft 

a bill. 

Third, of special interest to me is the lack of surge capacity in 

our health care system. Should we have another major terrorist attack or near simultaneous attacks, I would bet that all of our trauma centers will be full to capacity even before the latest victims get 

there. 

And finally, let me say that both wellness and preventive care 

are the cheapest options for health care, and I hope we feature 

both as we craft a bill. Thank you very much. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. The gentlewoman from Tennessee, Ms. 

Blackburn. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARSHA BLACKBURN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE 

Ms. BLACKBURN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the 

hearing, and welcome to our guests today. You know there is a saying nothing in life is free, and in Tennessee we have figured this 

out with our Tenn Care system. It has become proof of that. We 

have learned that comprehensive health care packages for all cannot be affordable. Government’s resources to provide care are fixed, 

and as we learned, intervention can exacerbate rather than control 

the growing cost of health care. And Tenn Care has been very problematic for our state. 

Tenn Care kept a blind eye to rising costs and over generosity. 

It imposed no limits on days in the hospital or number of prescriptions that were allowed each month, and in the mid ’90s, each 

Tenn Care enrollee received an average of 30 prescripts per year. 

However, health outcomes in the state did not improve. 

So to control costs and expand care, we must look to market 

forces, not look past them. And while the private sector is in need 

of reform, it is more effective than the proposed government-run 

options being floated to bring about more efficient, higher quality, 

and more effective health care. 

This hearing is entitled ‘‘Ensuring Affordable Coverage.’’ I believe it should be entitled ‘‘Ensuring Access to Affordable Health 

Care Options,’’ and I say that because of the experience we have 

had in our state. The nation will achieve high quality care at a 

lower cost when Americans are empowered to make choices and become prudent health care consumers. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back my time. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Gonzalez. Mr. Gingrey. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PHIL GINGREY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF GEORGIA 

Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Ensuring affordable 

quality health care for all Americans is a worthy goal indeed, a 

necessary goal. We should work to ensure that low-income families, 

those with disabilities or chronic diseases, and all who purchase 

health care on their own, have the same opportunity to access 

health care as their neighbors. 


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But access to an insurance card, no matter if that card is for a 

family health plan or a government program, it does not guarantee 

access to quality health care. In my state of Georgia, the number 

of general physicians has declined over 15 percent in the past 10 

years. Unfortunately Georgia is not an isolated case. 

Mr. Chairman, access to quality health care should mean that all 

Americans are able to see a qualified medical professional and receive a life-saving treatment or drug when they need it. Going forward, Mr. Chairman, it is my hope that this subcommittee will not 

lose sight of the fact that we will destroy, not improve, but destroy 

health care if we take actions to reform the system that drive doctors out of the practice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. The gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands, Ms. Christensen. 

Ms. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I waive my opening statement. 

Mr. PALLONE. Gentlewoman from Florida, Ms. Castor. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. KATHY CASTOR, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA 

Ms. CASTOR. Thank you, Chairman Pallone. Our neighbors and 

folks all across this country are depending on us to tackle this 

health care reform effort and help make health care more affordable for their families. So we need your expert testimony now more 

than ever. The stakes are very high in my home state of Florida 

that has the second highest rate of uninsured. 

In fact, I was going through the comment cards in my office last 

night, and health care is the number one issue. They know that it 

is not just their well-being. It is their economic well-being in a very 

difficult time. 

One constituent shared a story. I guess they felt so compelled. 

They were so offended by the fact they were waiting in line at the 

pharmacy behind a woman who was picking up insulin for a relative, and the pharmacist had to say I am sorry. Your private 

HMO has declined coverage. We cannot provide the insulin. And 

they said there is no other option? No, there is no other option for 

this expensive insulin. We cannot provide it to you. So that person, 

that neighbor waiting behind felt so compelled to write to their 

member of Congress to say this just is not acceptable in our country. 

The proof of dysfunction is legion. Now, what we need are the solutions. So I look forward to your testimony very much, and I know 

that this committee will act expeditiously this year on health care 

reform. Thank you. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. The gentlewoman from Ohio, Ms. Sutton. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BETTY SUTTON, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OHIO 

Ms. SUTTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important hearing. I am particularly interested in today’s topic of making health care affordable for working families. Unfortunately our 

current system is far from affordable, and every day we wait, there 

are consequences. 


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Ask Tammy Whit from Ohio. She was diagnosed with stage three 

breast cancer in April of 2006 and had to undergo a mastectomy 

and nine months of radiation. Tammy was receiving what she 

thought was comprehensive health insurance from her job, but 

Tammy’s low annual insurance benefit caps left her with 

unaffordable medical debt that eventually caused her to declare 

bankruptcy. 

Like Tammy, far too many Americans have to worry about facing 

bankruptcy when they become ill because of the cost of health care. 

We can do better, Mr. Chairman, by Tammy and families across 

this country. We have to do what we can to rein in costs and make 

health care more accessible and affordable. And I look forward to 

hearing from our panelists today. 

Mr. PALLONE. Gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Braley. Ms. Baldwin. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TAMMY BALDWIN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WISCONSIN 

Ms. BALDWIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hear from my constituents every single day about the high cost of health care, 

whether they are insured or not. Brenda, a constituent of mine, 

was self-employed as a children’s book author. Her small income 

disqualified her from being eligible for Wisconsin’s public health insurance program, and she couldn’t afford to purchase health care 

in the individual market. 

Last year, Brenda got a small kidney stone, but because she was 

uninsured and could not afford health care, she delayed getting it 

treated to the point that she had to be hospitalized with severe infections and internal bleeding. She is no longer able to work and 

receives insurance from the public health insurance program now. 

We absolutely must tackle this issue if our reform is to succeed 

at all, and we must ensure that individuals like Brenda are able 

to access the care they need when they need it. 

In my last couple of seconds, Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to respond to some of the comments we have heard about having public 

sector options along with private sector options. Medicare Part D 

is used as an example frequently. I would note that in the state 

of Wisconsin, I think we are the only state that has a public sector 

option in the Medicare Part D program. It is very, very successful, 

and I hope that we will be able to study it further as we have this 

debate about whether there should be both public and private sector options available to our constituents. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. 

Murphy. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TIM MURPHY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA 

Mr. MURPHY OF CONNECTICUT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hope 

that we spend some time this morning talking about the fact that 

just because you have health care insurance doesn’t necessarily 

mean you have health care. This is an important distinction that 

needs to be at the center of this debate. 


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For instance, in Connecticut, we have a very generous Medicaid 

program, but because it doesn’t pay doctors enough to be part of 

it, we have Medicaid recipients that can’t find a psychiatrist or 

can’t find an orthopedic surgeon no matter where they go. Before 

I came here, we had to pass a law in Connecticut that cracked 

down on private insurers that were charging $200 copays for MRIs, 

basically putting the entire burden of that procedure on the consumer. 

Universal health care insurance and universal health care are 

potentially very different things, and I hope that this hearing will 

push Congress towards passing a health care reform bill that guarantees that every American gets quality health care that they can 

afford, not just a claim of coverage or phantom access. I thank the 

panel for being here, and I look forward to hearing from you today. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Gentleman from Utah, Mr. Matheson. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JIM MATHESON, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF UTAH 

Mr. MATHESON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Cost is the issue, and 

today we are talking about affordability for families. We should be 

talking about affordability for everyone, the American families, 

businesses, the effect on small business. There is a lot of talk about 

access and making sure everyone has access to health care. If we 

give access to everyone under our current system and don’t take 

steps to create reform in our system and make it more efficient, we 

are going to drive off the financial cliff even more quickly than we 

are headed right now. 

So I encourage this committee to continue to look at ways to 

make this system better. The good news is there is tremendous opportunity to make it better without spending more money. The current system is inefficient. It is not productive. It has perverse incentives built throughout its structure. It has a bloated administrative component that I can’t believe we have put up with as a country. So I think there are great opportunities for this committee to 

act in the best traditions of the Energy and Commerce Committee 

in a bipartisan way to be substantive, to look at multiple variables 

that really need to be addressed if we want to reform our health 

care system. 

That is what this committee ought to do, and I look forward to 

this hearing and additional hearings in the future. Thanks, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, and I want to thank all of our members for their opening statements, and now we will turn to our witnesses and welcome to all of you. We have a very distinguished 

panel with us today, and I am going to introduce them from left 

to right. And then we will have five-minute statements from each 

of you. 

First again to my left is Dr. Uwe Reinhardt, who is a professor 

of political economy, economics and public affairs at Princeton University in home state. Thank you very being here today. We have 

Ms. Sally Pipes who is president and chief executive officer of the 

Pacific Research Institute, and then we have Dr. Judy Feder, who 

is senior fellow of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. 


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She also has been before our committee many times in the past, 

our subcommittee. 

So thank you all, and if we could start with Dr. Reinhardt. Is 

your mike on? I am not sure. You pressed the button? 

Mr. REINHARDT. High tech. 

Mr. PALLONE. That is good. 

STATEMENTS OF UWE REINHARDT, PH.D., PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, 

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY; SALLY C. PIPES, B.A., PRESIDENT 

AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, PACIFIC RESEARCH INSTITUTE; AND JUDY FEDER, PH.D., SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER 

FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS ACTION FUND 

STATEMENT OF UWE REINHARDT 

Mr. REINHARDT. I am from rural New Jersey, as you know, and 

I have to learn these things. 

I have submitted a statement to the committee. It falls into three 

parts, and the first one I briefly visit the issue of cost, just to remind Americans how expensive our system is. The second one, I 

look at what this cost does to American families, looking sort of at 

the median American family. And then in the final, I have some 

perspectives on proposals before the nation to fix this problem. 

Now, it is well known that we spend on a per capita basis in purchasing power parity a lot more than other nations, 56 percent 

more than Switzerland, which is viewed as a very high quality 

health care system, and 83 percent more than Canadians do. And 

yet if you look at health statistics, you will not find that much different. In fact, I find it an intellectual breakthrough of major proportions that the business roundtable, which used to be the 

staunch defender of our system as the best in the world, now comes 

out with a report just last week talking about a 20 percent value 

gap, saying relative to other nations, Americans get 20 percent less 

value for their health care dollar than other nations. That is a very 

important recognition by these important people. 

I also remind people of what we call the Winberg variations, for 

example, that under Medicare, it costs more than twice as much 

per elderly in Miami than it does in San Francisco, which is an 

issue, I believe, that Congress should begin to look into, fund research to say why should it cost twice as much in one part of the 

country than in others. But it is not just in Medicare. You will find 

the same in private insurance as well. 

So I believe cost effectiveness analysis, which is a dirty word yet 

on the Hill, at some point does have to be embraced. It is just 

called operations research. There is no other industry that wouldn’t 

look at cost per unit of output. Health care is really the only one. 

But I also would urge Congress not to say let us do cost control 

first and then universal coverage because we have said this for 30 

years. We have never done the former, and I don’t think you can 

fool God that long with the excuse that we cannot afford it. We 

have said this now for 30 years. It is time to go to universal coverage. 

In the second section, I look at the American family. I use for 

this not health insurance premiums, which is a very misleading inVerDate Mar 15 2010 02:22 Mar 24, 2012 Jkt 067813 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A813.XXX A813

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dicator. I use the Milliman medical index, which includes the premium for health insurance for the family plus their out-of-pocket 

spending. But you can always make premiums go down or slower 

just by cutting the benefit package, raising deductibles, and so on. 

So you really should look at the Milliman medical index. Last year, on average, for a family of four, it costs $15,600 for health 

care in America. It would be now $16,500. Now, compare that to 

the median household income in America in 2007 was $51,000. So 

if one had the view that people should be responsible for their own 

health care, you would be saying for a median American family 

that they should spend $16,000 out of their $51,000. That is an 

awful heavy burden. Now, for lower income families, as your statement correctly says, 30 percent of available discretionary income 

goes for health care. 

So what I predict that in the next decade—I have a little table here. I use a family here with a wage base of $50,000 and say if 

that wage base grows at 3 percent and health care spending per 

capita by 8 percent, which is what it has been, for the next decade, 

then half that family’s wage base would be chewed up by health 

care 10 years from now, half. 

Even if you make very optimistic assumption that health spending grows only 4 percent and wages 5 percent—it is even unthinkable given what we are facing right now. But even if you make 

that, 30 percent of that family’s wage base would be chewed up. So 

we are sailing into a perfect storm, and the Congress at some point 

faces the following question. Either taxes have to be raised on 

those of us fortunate to be in the upper part of the income distribution, myself included, or—and then you could have a roughly egalitarian health system. Or you seriously have to redesign the system 

to ration health care by income class, which is, of course, what we 

have been doing already. And this is a sort of mischievous piece of 

mythology that government run systems like Canada’s ration 

health care and private markets don’t. If you have a specialty drug that costs $100,000 a year and you 

ask somebody to pay a 30 percent co-insurance for getting that 

drug, you are rationing that person out of that specialty drug if 

their income is $50,000. I mean it is just—every textbook in economics will tell you that prices ration. It is just one other form of 

rationing. So this is what the Congress faces. 

And then look in the last section at the individual market and 

presents several models. I don’t have time to go into it, but there 

is the issue of the public health plan. Given what the American 

people have witnessed, they have seen great American companies, 

AIG, GM, CitiGroup, go under. Given the shock they have received, 

one could imagine that Americans would yearn for an option that 

is government because I believe in the end it is the government 

Americans trust because that is where they always run to when 

they get in trouble, whether they are big bankers, or whether it is 

FEMA or whoever it is. When the going gets tough, the tough run 

to the government. That is the slogan, and I have observed it for 

40 years in this country. 

So therefore I believe that people say we shouldn’t have a public 

option have a tall order to explain to the American people why they 

should be deprived of a choice that they may yearn to have. And 


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I then go through later on how one could make that a level playing 

field. It is after all only a choice. You don’t have to choose it. You 

can go private. But it should be, in my view, I as a citizen would 

love to have that option, and I might even take it. Thank you very 

much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Reinhardt follows:] 


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Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, Dr. Reinhardt. I want to make sure I 

got this quote. When the going gets tough, the tough run to the 

government? 

Mr. REINHARDT. Yes. 

Mr. PALLONE. OK. 

Mr. REINHARDT. That is the marching order of the rugged individualist. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Ms. Pipes. 

STATEMENT OF SALLY C. PIPES 

Ms. PIPES. And that is probably me. Thank you very much for 

the opportunity to testify. I think we would all agree that all Americans want affordable, accessible quality health care. The question 

is how do we achieve that goal? And there are two competing visions for reforming health care and achieving universal coverage in 

this country. 

One focuses on patient-centered solutions, empowering doctors 

and patients, and encouraging innovation in new pharmaceuticals 

and medical devices. The other vision is focusing on increasing the 

role of government in our health care through higher taxes, mandates, and subsidies. This vision for greater government involvement is on the rise today, and I think we need to focus on the fact 

47 percent of health care in this country today is in the hands of 

government through Medicare, Medicaid, S–CHIP, and the VA system. 

The long-term goal of the new administration and many Democrats in Congress is Medicaid for all. As has been pointed out, the 

U.S. today spends 16 percent of GDP on health care, about $2.3 

trillion, and many people say that that is too much. And if we are 

going to get that percentage down and achieve universal coverage, 

how do we reduce the number of uninsured from the 46 million 

Americans? 

Canada, my country of birth and where I spent most of my career working as an economist, spends 10 percent of GDP on health 

care and does have universal coverage. If Canada has universal 

coverage and only spends 10 percent of GDP, why can we not duplicate that model? The Canadian government took over the Canadian health care system in 1974 and banned any private health 

care for procedures provided under the Canada Health Act. 

Of course, the demand for health care was much greater than 

could be provided by government. As a result, Canadians suffer 

from long waiting lists for care, rationed care, and a lack of access 

to the latest technological equipment. 

A few statistics: 750,000 Canadians are on a waiting list, waiting 

for procedures; 3.2 million Canadians, out of a population of 32 million, are waiting to get a primary care doctor. The average wait 

today from seeing a primary care doctor to getting treatment by a 

specialist is 17.3 weeks. That is over four months. Canada ranks 

14th out of 25 countries within the OECD on MRI machines and 

19th out of 26 countries in CT scanners. 

When the government is the monopoly provider of health care, 

people wait and wait. When they get tired of waiting or are too sick 

to wait further, they flee if they can, and many come to the United 

States for treatment. 


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Belinda Stronick, former member of Parliament in Canada, opposed opening up the Canadian health care system to any private 

side, but when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in June 2007, 

she came to UCLA and had her breast cancer surgery done and 

paid for it out of pocket. 

A woman in Calgary, Alberta, expecting quadruplets last year, 

there was not a single neonatal unit in Calgary, in Alberta, or in 

Canada where she could deliver her quads. She was air lifted to 

Great Falls, Montana, a city of 55,000, and her quads were successfully delivered. 

I have many, many stories of people in my family. My mother 

couldn’t get a colonoscopy at her age and died within two weeks 

when she was hemorrhaging in the emergency room. Dr. Brian 

Day, orthopedic surgeon and former president of the Canadian 

Medical Association, told the ‘‘New York Times’’ ‘‘Canada is a country where a pet—a dog can get a hip replacement within two 

weeks. A Canadian citizen has to wait two to three years.’’ 

In June 2005, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled on a case for 

the province of Quebec that the ban on private health care and private insurance is illegal because of the long wait times. Madame 

Chief Justice Beverly McLaughlin said access to a waiting list is 

not access to health care. Canada is opening up its system while 

the U.S., it seems to me, is moving more towards a governmentadministered system. 

President Obama has said that employers would have to provide 

coverage or pay a payroll tax so that employees can get coverage 

within a new government-run insurance plan, which would be part 

of a newly created national insurance exchange. 

The exchange would also include private insurers. I think the 

government insurance and the private plans would have to have 

guaranteed issue, community rating, and many mandates which 

will make them even more expensive. 

My view is that the government plan will be priced lower than 

the private plans. I see ultimately crowding out of private plans 

and taking American down a fateful road to Medicaid for all. We 

would then have universal coverage. We would not have universal 

access. Care will be rationed. Taxes will increase significantly, and 

the entrepreneurial spirit of this country will be weakened. 

When we get totally socialized health care in America, where are 

we going to go? We can change the tax code, as has been mentioned, by removing the tax advantage to those who get their insurance through their employer. We could offer, as McCain suggested, 

a refundable tax credit for everyone. We want to empower patients. 

We want to reduce state mandates, which add between 20 and 50 

percent to the cost of an insurance plan. 

I think people should be able to purchase insurance across state 

lines. We need med now reform, and if we do all that, we can reduce costs and significantly reform and reduce the number of uninsured in this country. Universal choice will lead to universal coverage for all Americans, and then we will have affordable, accessible quality health care for all. 

As P.J. O’Rourke, my friend, says if you think health care is expensive now, just wait until it is free. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Pipes follows:] 


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Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Dr. Feder. 

STATEMENT OF JUDY FEDER 

Ms. FEDER. Thank you, Chairman Pallone and Congressman 

Deal and members of the committee. It is a pleasure to be with you 

today to talk about the critical need for affordable health care for 

all Americans. 

As I listened to Ms. Pipes, I wonder whether she is truly following the plight of Americans who can’t afford health care and 

whether she is following the kind of American health reform that 

we are really talking about. You mentioned President Obama’s 

campaign plan. He has talked about his commitment of the choice 

of health plan, of quality care, and affordability for all Americans. 

So I would like to get our attention back to the problems Americans are facing as 14,000 Americans are estimated every day to be 

losing their health insurance as they lose their jobs and as benefits 

are shrinking even for those Americans who have health insurance. 

The problem of unaffordability is most apparent for the now 

probably more than 47 million Americans who lack health insurance, most of whom have incomes below twice the federal poverty 

level, about $44,000 per family of four. And if they don’t get health 

insurance through their employers, as most of them don’t until 

most of them are working, they simply can’t afford the $13,000 

roughly 2008 cost of a comprehensive health insurance policy. 

But affordability, as you have noted, is increasingly a problem 

even for people who have health insurance. In 2007, for example, 

the Commonwealth Fund identified 25 million people under-insured or economically threatened due to high out-of-pocket costs up 

from 15 million. So that is 15 up to 25 million in only four years. 

Similarly, the number of Americans who report problems facing 

paying medical bills has risen. It has jumped from one in seven 

Americans under age 65 in 2003 to one in five Americans by 2007. 

Not surprisingly, low income families face the greatest problems, 

and sadly, our valuable Medicaid and CHIP programs do not necessarily prevent these problems. No matter how low their incomes, 

working aged adult who are not parents of dependent children or 

are not disabled aren’t eligible for Medicaid in most states. And 

even the populations they do cover, Medicaid and CHIP have been 

modified in recent years to give less protection in terms of out-ofpocket costs to low-income families. 

Finally, not really surprisingly but ironically, affordability problems are the biggest problem for people when they get sick. In particular, individuals who are older, have an activity limitation, a 

chronic condition like diabetes or heart disease are most likely to 

be underinsured. And if they don’t get coverage through an employer-sponsored health plan or if they lose this coverage, they are 

going to have one heck of a time getting it from a non-group market that systematically denies coverage, limits benefits, or charges 

excessive premiums to individuals with pre-existing conditions or 

whom insurers believe are likely to need health care. 

Now, I have been talking here about money problems, but we all 

know that affordable health care is a problem of your money and 

your life. There is lots of evidence and the Institute of Medicine has 

come out with a new report documenting once again that people 


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without health insurance are more likely than people who have 

health insurance to delay care, to get less care, and actually to die 

when they get sick. 

Sadly, evidence suggests that increasingly people who are underinsured are facing similar problems. One report shows that they 

are postponing care, skipping recommended medical visit or treatment, not filling prescriptions, and skipping doses or cutting pills. 

The underinsured not only struggle medically to survive, their 

medical struggle, as we have heard from some of you and you hearing from your constituents is forcing them into bankruptcy and increasingly into foreclosure. 

Even people with insurance just can’t afford to get sick. But we 

are gathered here today to address these problems, and, Mr. Chairman, we are counting on you in the coming months to do exactly 

that. So let me give you four principles to keep your eye on as the 

committee and the Congress moves forward. 

First, keep your eye on families’ total health spending, as Dr. 

Reinhardt said, not just premium contributions but also on 

deductibles, cost sharing, and spending for other service. You have 

to watch out for a desire to keep those premiums low by keeping 

the cost sharing high. The result is going to be insurance that 

doesn’t work when you get sick. 

Second and related, remember that benefits matter. Health insurance worthy of the name has to work for people when they are 

sick. So despite claims that I have heard and I am sure you have 

heard that any insurance is better than no insurance, insurance 

that leaves people without the ability to buy the services that their 

doctors and practitioners prescribe is just not good enough. Like 

members of Congress, all Americans need adequate benefit packages with a defined set of services. It is a critical linchpin for affordability. 

Third, affordability clearly depends on income, and low-income 

families need special protections. 

And finally, insurance must stop discriminating against sick people. As long as insurers can deny coverage, limit benefits, or charge 

higher rates based on people’s age or health status, insurance is 

going to remain unaffordable for people who need health care. 

Meaningful health reform cannot fail to ensure that health insurance is affordable for people who have been or whom insurers believe are likely to become sick. 

We know that enacting health reform is a challenging task, but 

now is the time. I commend you for your efforts and look forward 

to working with you to get affordable coverage for every American 

this year. Thanks. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Feder follows:] 


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Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, Dr. Feder, and thank all of you really 

for your statements. Now, the way we work it, we have questioning 

now from members of the committee, and I will start by recognizing myself for 5 minutes. 

And my question really is to both Dr. Reinhardt and Dr. Feder. 

I would like to get your thoughts on the addition of a new public 

plan, which you actually did discuss a new public plan to a menu 

of health care tools available for expanding coverage. 

Obviously we want to build on existing programs like S–CHIP 

and Medicare and Medicaid. But the fact remains that with 46 million uninsured people in this country, we will need to build significant new capacity in our insurance system. 

Now, you know, we have talked about having the government do 

a health care marketplace. Massachusetts is sometimes cited as an 

example where the government would go out to private plans and, 

you know, see what their benefits are, their premiums perhaps, negotiate both those standards and premiums and offer group plans 

to people as an alternative to the individual market. 

But in the context of that is this possibility of an option to enroll 

in a new quality affordable public plan. And the goal of that would 

be to create healthy competition with private insurers, lowering 

overall costs and at the same time expanding access across the 

health care system. So I wanted to start with Dr. Feder and ask 

what you think about creating a new public plan, and is that a 

good idea in the context of some kind of health marketplace, national health marketplace? 

Ms. FEDER. Mr. Chairman, I think you posed the question exactly right. It is very important to remember that what you put forward and what is being talked about is a choice for Americans and 

in choice of private and public plans, not characterized as a public 

takeover or Medicaid for all. That is completely incorrect. We are 

talking about choice. 

And the importance of that choice is actually to set a model, and 

insurance companies are no model for running this system efficiently, private insurance companies. And they are not getting us 

good deals and getting us adequate protection. So establishing a 

public plan that is a choice and that operates on a level playing 

field with private insurers can actually serve as a push to get more 

competition. I think competition is a goal that all of us have, effective competition, to get efficiency in the health care system. 

Mr. PALLONE. OK, thank you. Dr. Reinhardt, do the experiences 

of other countries that have successfully built universal health care 

systems suggest that a new public plan could be helpful to America, to the U.S.? 

Mr. REINHARDT. I think certainly it could. Not a lot of countries 

actually have this sort of mixture. The only one that comes close 

is Germany. They don’t really have a public plan, but they have 

privately managed sickness funds, nonprofit, that work a little bit 

like Medicaid managed care where the government collects the 

taxes essentially but lets private competing health plan purchase 

the health care but under unbelievably tight regulation. So it almost is like a government plan. 

I too share the view that if choice is the mantra, and many 

Americans really do like choice, then having a public plan that peoVerDate Mar 15 2010 23:52 Mar 23, 2012 Jkt 067813 PO 00000 Frm 00057 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A813.XXX A813

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ple might like seems to be something that should be done because 

by what rights would one deprive the American people of a choice 

they might favor? Now, where would I get this idea that they 

might favor a government plan? 

Well, two. The first one is we do have Medicare, and the elderly 

do have a choice to go into private health plans or to stay in the 

government-run plan. And I don’t know what the—I think 75 percent still choose the government plan in spite of the fact that the 

private health plans get—the taxpayer pays them 14 percent more 

to be able to offer a benefit. To me, that suggests there is a strong 

latent demand among the American people for a private health 

plan. 

And then people say well, that is socialized medicine, and I 

would urge the committee not to use that term anymore. And the 

reason I do is I will tell a little vignette. People will tell me socialized medicine is just terrible, and it is awful. And then I will say 

OK, I will accept it. Why do you not like my son? And then they 

look. What have you got to say—my son? I say my son is a veteran, 

a decorated U.S. Marine Corps veteran with a purple heart, and 

yet you give him socialized medicine called the VA. 

So why do Americans run down this concept? We are not even 

talking socialized medicine—we are talking about social insurance—run it down and yet give the very contract to the veterans, 

and I am a father of one. 

And I would like sometime if somebody in this room write to me 

and explain this paradox to an immigrant like me why do you give 

veterans socialized medicine when it is so bad. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Mr. Deal. 

Mr. DEAL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I indicated in my opening statement, transparency of pricing is important to me, and I 

have introduced a bill. And I would like to give you some of the 

components of that and see what your reaction to it would be. 

First of all, the bill would allow uninsured patients and other patients who pay out of pocket for certain health care costs to be able 

to go to an HHS Web site, enter their families income and the 

health care services they need, and find out the prices they will be 

charged for these services by all the health care providers in their 

area. 

Second, it would allow doctors and hospitals to use the same Web 

site to find out what a particular insurance company will pay them 

for a particular item or service before it is delivered, and it will 

allow these providers to find out what their patients’ copays will 

be. 

Third it would allow the insured patients to make better informed decisions by allowing them to use the same Web site to find 

out what their copayments would be for particular health care 

services in their area, depending on who the health care provider 

was. 

And finally, it would require HHS to publicly disclose all of their 

Medicaid data in a way that protects individual’s privacy but allows the public to join in the fight against Medicaid fraud and 

allow patient advocates to make sure that Medicaid patients, for 

example, are getting the care that they need. It would allow citizens to know whether or not young children who are enrolled in 


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their state’s Medicaid program are getting their well child checkups, and whether older patients are getting their annual cancer 

screenings. 

Would a piece of legislation like that be something that each of 

you might support? And I will just ask you individually. Dr. 

Reinhardt? 

Mr. REINHARDT. As a general principle, price transparency is essential if you ever want to have models based on choice and competition. And, of course, the health system has been uniquely 

opaque in this regard. Now, there is a problem with posting prices. 

Hospital charge masters has close to 20,000 items, and a physician 

fee schedule has 7,000 items in it. So prices would have to be 

reconfigured to be for complete procedures. 

I had in a paper proposed, in Health Affairs, that maybe the way 

to go is to say let us use the DRG system for all patients, no matter 

who the insurer is, because it is a relative value scale. But each 

hospital has the right to set its own conversion factor to monetize 

the thing, and they have to advertise that. And only one number 

would give you the prices of a hospital. 

Or one could have research that bundles all the services that go 

into a treatment like a coronary bypass graft or a hip replacement 

and then give you the price per procedure with everything bundled 

in. 

But I think the idea of transparency is one I would wholeheartedly support. 

Mr. DEAL. Thank you. Ms. Pipes. 

Ms. PIPES. Yes, and I too support price transparency. We have 

price transparency in most aspects of our life, whether it is what 

service we use or what bank we use. I would be against government mandating price transparency. I think, you know, in consumer patient-centered health care, we have seen—we will see, if 

we encourage that and support it, I think we will see price transparency because when you put doctors and patients in charge of 

your health care, prices will be negotiated. 

I think if we change the tax code, as I mentioned, so that individuals can by health insurance, as Ms. Eshoo said, on the same level 

playing field that those who get the tax benefit through their employer-based coverage. I think we will see much more competition. 

We will see new entrance into the insurance market, and when we 

have more competition, we will see prices being negotiated. 

I think even in Medicare, you know, we could open up to empowering Medicare patients and doctors, and we will see people negotiating. And we will get price transparency as we have in all other 

aspects of American life. 

Mr. DEAL. I take that as a qualified yes? 

Ms. PIPES. Yes. 

Mr. DEAL. Dr. Feder. 

Ms. FEDER. I think that your proposal, Congressman Deal, 

makes a great deal of sense. I haven’t seen it in all its details, but 

transparency in what—getting inside the black box of insurance is 

critical as a customer, as a taxpayer, every other way. And so I applaud your efforts, and I am happy to be of what help I can. 

Mr. DEAL. Thank you. Let me explore very briefly because my 

time is running out. If we go to a government option proposal that 


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would be offered as part of a package, would you anticipate that 

that government option would also have to take into account state 

mandates on what must be offered, which vary obviously from state 

to state, and would it also therefore take into account community 

pricing? And if it does all of that, don’t we wind up with a system 

where a public plan would cost significantly more depending on 

where you lived? And how do we deal with that inequity in terms 

of explaining that to the public? Or would it simply be a uniform 

premium that you would anticipate that public plan would offer? 

Ms. PIPES. So I pointed that out in my testimony that things like 

guaranteed issue, community rating, and a lot of mandates add significantly, 20 to 50 percent, to the cost of a premium. And if, within 

this national insurance exchange, there is going to be a public plan 

and all of those things are going to be added onto it, you are right. 

We are going to see the cost of insurance go up rather than going 

down. And that is going to crowd more people out of getting covered and reducing that number of uninsured. 

So under the health saving account patient-based health care, it 

is not for everyone, but we have seen prices come down as Mr., I 

think, Burgess mentioned. We have also seen that people who have 

HSAs are 30 percent more likely to get an annual checkup and be 

engaged in prevention because they don’t want to be facing significant cost once they have a degree. And that work was done by 

McKinsey and Company. 

So I think we have to be very careful. I am very worried. New 

Jersey, New York, Massachusetts have community rating, guaranteed issue. Their insurance is very expensive, and if we do this 

plan, it is going to crowd out private insurers, and that is my main 

concern. 

Mr. DEAL. I am sorry I can’t have any time. I have already exceeded my time, and I am afraid I can’t let the rest of you answer. 

But maybe we can get to it later. Thank you. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, Mr. Deal. Ms. Eshoo. 

Ms. ESHOO. Well, I want to thank the witnesses, each one coming 

from their own place and stating their case really forthrightly. I enjoyed your testimony, and I think that, while I might not agree 

with everything that I have heard, I like the way you have framed 

it and presented it to us. 

Since today is St. Patrick’s Day and the one day where we are 

all Irish, Ms. Pipes—is it, yes, Pipes. You quote P.J. O’Rourke. And 

you say if you think health care is expensive now, just wait until 

it is free. Where, in anything, is anyone talking about free? 

Ms. PIPES. Well, Michael Moore—— 

Ms. ESHOO. I mean where does this come from? 

Ms. PIPES. Well, because people, as Michael Moore said in his 

movie ‘‘Sicko’’—— 

Ms. ESHOO. We are not talking about movies. We are talking 

about reality. 

Ms. PIPES. Right. 

Ms. ESHOO. So when you say in congressional testimony if you 

think health care is expensive now, wait until it is free, who has 

suggested that health care is free? We are faced with 12 and 14 

percent increases every year. It simply is unsustainable. We know 

that people are left out. We know that it is a system that is fracVerDate Mar 15 2010 23:52 Mar 23, 2012 Jkt 067813 PO 00000 Frm 00060 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A813.XXX A813

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tured. We know that we are spending too much as a nation and 

not getting back for people what they should have. And so I really 

think that the notion to say just wait until it is free is—it really 

doesn’t belong here. I just—I feel strongly about that. I don’t know 

if—you might not regret having said it, but I don’t think it is really 

part of this. 

I mean you can defend it, but do you have a defense for it? 

Ms. PIPES. Yes. 

Ms. ESHOO. Yes. 

Ms. PIPES. So thank you for that comment. What it means is 

when government takes over the total supply of health care, people 

think it is free because—— 

Ms. ESHOO. Well, we can get into a real debate here. This is not 

a discussion about the government taking it over. This is about the 

government rewriting the rules of this because so much of it is not 

working, and we know that it is not. Insurers say that. Families 

say that, and so there is consensus on that. 

So now, let me move on and just as a few questions. I really 

want to kind of drill down on this whole issue of tax treatment. 

And while this is not the Weighs and Means Committee, you are 

all experts, and I really would like to hear your views on this and 

what your opinions are on the tax treatment of employer-sponsored 

insurance plans. 

As you know, those who get their insurance through work pay 

no tax, while those that purchase insurance without a group plan 

do. Do you think that all plans should be taxed? Do you think they 

should be taxed in part for certain services? What is your view on 

all of this? It is not a subject matter that is often discussed, and 

I am curious about it. So Dr. Feder, do you want to start? 

Ms. FEDER. Sure. You raised it in your opening remarks—— 

Ms. ESHOO. Right. 

Ms. FEDER [continuing]. That it is concerning to you. And our 

employer-sponsored health insurance has grown up as the development preceded the special tax treatment, but that has strengthened it. And there is a concern about inequities because better off 

people get a better break than low income and certainly than low 

insured because it varies with your tax bracket. And so there are 

concerns about that. 

But I am very concerned about doing anything that undermines 

the employer-sponsored health insurance system because although 

it has significant limitations, it does create the groups, and you 

talked about ensuring access to group insurance. It creates those 

groups that enables us to pool risk rather than having everybody 

on his own, which we see in the non-group market. 

So I think that there are concerns about it. I think as we develop 

a system, we want it to be fair and share responsibility, whether 

it is through the tax system or other mechanisms for everybody. 

But I am very concerned about proposals to eliminate the tax break 

because it essentially does undermine the insurance system, the 

employer-sponsored. And also anything that would shift, that 

would make it come apart and throw everybody into the non-group 

market. 

Ms. ESHOO. Um-hum, thank you. Dr. Reinhardt. 

Mr. REINHARDT. Well—— 


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Ms. ESHOO. Well, you posed a question about socialized. It is a 

political phrase to scare people. 

Mr. REINHARDT. Yes. 

Ms. ESHOO. That is what it is. 

Mr. REINHARDT. Yes, but it is—— 

Ms. ESHOO. It is a bumper sticker. 

Mr. REINHARDT. It is really peculiar when you—— 

Ms. ESHOO. It is peculiar. 

Mr. REINHARDT [continuing]. Are the father of a veteran to have 

that—— 

Ms. ESHOO. Well, how about members of Congress receiving Social Security? 

Mr. REINHARDT. Yes, or a—— 

Ms. ESHOO. Right. 

Mr. REINHARDT. Who are on Social Security as you know. 

Ms. ESHOO. Right. 

Mr. REINHARDT. No, the issue of taxing employer-provided benefits, most economists in theory would be for that, but there is always the concern, and I have written a paper on the balance sheet 

for employment-based insurance. At the moment, it is the only 

really functioning risk pooling mechanism in the private sector and 

actually, for all its flaws, has worked and served Americans reasonably well. 

So an alternative might be to go and say well, self-employed people should have the same tax privileges, anything tax-wise that 

would cost that much money. And that seems fair to do, but there 

still is an issue of giving people in high income brackets a bigger 

tax break than in low income brackets, which you really sense with 

the flexible spending account, where when I get a tool drilled it 

costs me half, and the gas station attendant pays 85 cents on the 

dollar. 

So there are ways to deal with it. For example, one could say 

harvest some of the money. I am a full professor at an Ivy League 

university. I really don’t need this tax break to get health insurance. I could be asked to pay taxes on it, and I think I would. So 

you could say if you are making less than $75,000, you won’t be 

taxed on it. If you make between $75,000 and maybe $150,000, we 

will take half what the employer pays and add it to your W–4. And 

if it is over $150,000 or over $200,000 the whole thing is taxed. 

Then you say you are punishing the rich. Well, I don’t consider 

that punishment. I consider asking me, who is so lucky to have a 

tenured job at Princeton, to pay for my own health care, I don’t call 

that an imposition. I don’t really need that subsidy from the gas 

station attendant, which I now have. 

So that is one way you could harvest some of the money without 

hurting the rank and file. 

Ms. ESHOO. Thank you very much to each one. 

Mr. PALLONE. Gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Whitfield. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you very much, and thank you all so 

much for your testimony today. We appreciate it very much. When 

we think about Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, S–CHIP, we know that 

that represents about 48 or 49 percent of the total health care delivery system in the U.S. 


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And I think most people view those as government programs, 

which is providing a valuable service, but we also know that those 

programs are contributing greatly to the escalating costs in health 

care. Every time you visit with the Concord or a lot of groups, they 

say with Medicare increasing costs every year and Medicaid increasing costs every year and Social Security increasing costs every 

year, that we are going to have a financial disaster 22, 23, 24 years 

down the road on top of our already economic crisis that we face 

today. 

So when we talk about reforming health care, I think many of 

us on this side of the aisle view it as the government taking it over. 

I mean and the government already runs Medicare, Medicaid, S– 

CHIP, the Veterans’ health care system. And I know, Dr. 

Reinhardt, you mentioned that we—I had to leave during your testimony, but I think you said we need universal health coverage. 

And, Dr. Feder, I don’t know that you said that, but I believe you 

set out certain principles that you had to consider to—— 

Ms. FEDER. And I do favor universal coverage. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Yes, so if the government plan that is in operation today, I mean the ones that I mentioned, the costs are escalating every year. We can’t control those costs. If we allow government to be basically responsible for the other 50 percent, why are 

we encouraged that the government could control those costs better 

than the way we are controlling costs today? 

Ms. FEDER. Well, Congressman, I don’t think we are proposing 

having government take over those other costs, and I actually 

think, as you look at the share the government is spending, some 

talk about it as a shifting from the private sector to the public sector because our public programs are taking care of older Americans, disable Americans. And Medicaid, the bulk of the spending in 

Medicaid is for people with disabilities and older people and longterm care. So they have particular responsibilities and have left the 

healthiest population to the private sector. 

And when you talk about the overall cost growth, we have lots 

of evidence—and I know that former CBO director Peter Orzack 

presented that to you as CBO director, and now as OMB director, 

he makes the same point. And that is that our public health insurance programs are not growing faster than the cost of health care 

in general. Everybody is buying in the same market; although, 

Medicaid really buys on the cheap. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Yes. 

Ms. FEDER. But the costs are growing in general so that the only 

way to get a handle on the growing costs, which you rightly recognize, of Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans, any health insurance program that we have, is to pursue slower cost growth through investment in primary care and prevention and a host of other mechanisms—— 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Right. 

Ms. FEDER [continuing]. That affect the entire system and to 

make sure that everybody has coverage all the time so that we can 

promote prevention and better treatment. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Now, you know, as you were talking—and, Dr. 

Reinhardt, I will give you an opportunity to reply also. But as you 

were talking, another government program that I think has worked 


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very well is the community health centers. I mean I think the community health centers addressing the primary health care issue 

have worked very well. And basically they are paid for by the federal government working with local entities. And I always thought 

that community health centers and a partnership in the private 

sector with gigantic employers might be a way to expand accessibility too. 

Ms. FEDER. Well, I share your view of the excellent performance 

and the value of community health centers, and they certainly are 

a part of the system in making sure that, as many have said, people don’t just have access to health insurance, they have access to 

care. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Right. 

Ms. FEDER. But the community health centers, when less people 

have insurance coverage, they face tremendous problems once anybody gets beyond primary care. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Right. 

Ms. FEDER. They can’t find specialists. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Right. 

Ms. FEDER. People need insurance coverage. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Now, Dr. Reinhardt, if you will take about 30 

seconds to reply, if you can, then I want to make one other comment. 

Mr. REINHARDT. The first point I want to support, if you look in 

November ’07, Peter Orzack published a beautiful report on health 

care cost growth. And it is figure four. You can actually really see 

how each sector, public, private, is growing. And in fact, on a per 

capita basis, Medicare has grown less rapidly than the private sector. On the community health center—— 

Mr. WHITFIELD. On the cost of it? 

Mr. REINHARDT. On the cost. You have to do it per beneficiary, 

and Marilyn Moon has done a lot of research. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. OK. 

Mr. REINHARDT. And that is well understood. On the community 

health center, I think they are an important part of the landscape 

in American health care because they are so accessible, and they 

do a great job for the money they have used. But we had a commission on rationalizing New Jersey health care and looked at these 

centers, and this theme that they are great in primary care, but 

then they are not multi-specialty. Getting access to specialists was 

the Achilles heel. So yes, I think we should have them. It should 

stay, and the Congress might worry about how to have a larger 

range of services provided. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Fine. Mr. Chairman, I would just make one 

other comment. Another thing that bothers a lot of people though 

when you talk about universal health coverage and you think about 

the Canada system and the Great Britain system and so forth, and 

Ms. Pipes went over this in her testimony. Maybe you all can address it later. But if it is true 750,000 Canadians are waiting for 

procedures and 3.2 million out of the population are waiting to get 

a primary care doctor and Canada, the average wait for seeing a 

primary care doctor for getting treatment by a specialist was 17.3 

weeks and the rationalization of health care, that is a real concern 

to a lot of people. 


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And you can’t respond to it now, but later on I am sure we will 

have an opportunity to address that in more detail. Thank you. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Gentleman from Texas, Mr. Green. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and following up on my 

colleague from Kentucky, I have a district, a very urban district in 

Houston. It is an under, underserved district. We have actually 

four community based health centers, and they are in financial 

trouble right now because so much of that we depend on is foundation funding. And foundation funding, because of the economy, is 

cratering. So we need more of them, but we also need to look at, 

you know, our authorization levels, that we upped the authorization to five-year authorization last time. Even with the stimulus 

money that was in there, in the Houston area, fourth largest city 

in the country, it helped two of our FQHCs. So, you know, we need 

to be better on the community based health centers. And hopefully 

whatever plan we have will make them where the rubber meets 

the road literally for the uninsured and the underserved. I mean 

it is a great program. It has been around for almost 50 years now, 

I guess, since President Johnson. 

And I would like to ask the panel how do you see these FQHCs 

because of the—my problem is the disparity of the location. Great 

example, Chicago is fortunate to have 81 community health centers, and in Houston, Harris County, we have 10. And we are trying to create more even though we are the fourth largest city and 

may pass Chicago in the census. 

But we have a disparity in where these centers are located because of the local networks. 

Ms. FEDER. It seems to me, Mr. Green, and I would have to look 

into it further as to what the problem is under the circumstances, 

but the best way that you can promote those delivery systems is 

to get everybody health insurance because then every patient who 

comes into a community health center is carrying money. They are 

not dependent on the federal grants. So the bottom line is that we 

need health insurance in order to enable the delivery systems to 

prosper. 

Mr. GREEN. Well, the problem FQHCs have is just like the problems of hospitals and doctors. You have a lot of uncompensated 

care. 

Ms. FEDER. Exactly. 

Mr. GREEN. Even though people have to pay something, they 

don’t pay enough that covers the cost of the service. 

Ms. FEDER. Right, and valuable as they are, and as Mr. Whitfield 

said, is that even expanding community health centers is not a 

substitute for getting people insurance. They are a valuable part of 

the delivery system and should be supported by everyone having 

health insurance coverage. 

Ms. PIPES. I would just like to add that I support community hospitals, and Michelle Obama, during the campaign, you know, said 

being at the University of Chicago, people shouldn’t be turning up 

at the University of Chicago emergency rooms for very, very expensive care. She supported the community hospitals. So that was a 

very good point. 

Just a point on the hidden tax. People keep saying that the uninsured are adding a tremendous burden to the cost of those who 


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have private insurance. The work done by Dan Kessler at Stanford, 

he shows that the uninsured are adding about 1 percent to the cost 

of premium for those who have private insurance. 

The 10 percent cost addition to private payers’ premiums comes 

from Medicare and Medicaid from the lower reimbursement rates 

paid by the government. So I think that we really need to focus on, 

you know, how, you know, if we are going to go down to the path 

to more Medicare, more Medicaid expanding these programs, reimbursement rates are low and as we see now, one in three new 

Medicare eligible patients is having trouble finding a primary care 

doc. 

Because in systems like Canada, when the government took over 

the health care, people talked about there would be a lot of increase in primary care, but in fact, med students didn’t go into primary care because when the government determines how much you 

are paid, they would rather go into specialties. So that is why we 

have a tremendous shortage in Canada of primary care docs. 

Mr. GREEN. Well, I will give you an example of the FQHC doctors can’t make a decent living there. You know, you can get 

$135,000 or a family practice in a community based health center. 

The problem is that it is not, you know, not the specialties. And 

we know how high the specialties are. Dr. Reinhardt? 

Mr. REINHARDT. I would want to stress Dr. Feder’s point. The important thing is to endow people with purchasing power to get 

health care because the trouble with institutional grants is you can 

have community health centers that are angelic. They have the 

budget. And you have others that are not, and to get performance 

is measured is not easy. But when customers can walk, competition 

will actually take care of it. That is why in general community 

health centers, as a delivery device are good. But I think it would 

be good that if their clients brought their own purchasing power 

with them. 

On this issue of cost shift, this is actually an interesting thing. 

People who believe in markets should not believe in my view that 

just because Medicaid or Medicare pays hospitals too little, private 

payers have to pay more. That is not true in a hotel. If somebody 

gets a discount, they don’t call you up in the middle of the night 

and say hey, Smith just registered. We gave him a discount. We 

are going to raise your rate. So if you actually believe the private 

market works, why are private insurers not following Nancy Reagan’s advice, just say no— 

Mr. GREEN. Well—— 

Mr. REINHARDT [continuing]. We are not going to take it. So I 

don’t believe this cost shift story of private payers picking up what 

Medicare doesn’t pay. I don’t believe in that story. 

Mr. GREEN. Well, Mr. Chairman, I know we have a situation in 

our country, Medicare pays so much. Medicare actually pays less, 

but in some cases, if you have a military base, got to see Champus 

and TriCare, don’t even pay what Medicare makes in reimbursement. And we have run into that problem in a very urban area 

with our number of activations. So you are right. We need to look 

at the reimbursement rate to make sure they actually do fit the 

cost of the service. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 


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Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Burgess. 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me just ask a question. I hate to do this because it is beyond the scope of this panel. 

But Mr. Green brought up in his opening statement that Texas has 

25 percent uninsured. When Massachusetts did their program several years ago, they made a decision that they were not going to 

factor in or they were not going to include in their factoring any 

cost for people who were in the country without the benefit of a Social Security number. Of the uninsured in Texas, there are a significant number. We could never ignore that number of people who 

are in the country without the benefit of a Social Security number. 

So we failed on several attempts since my short tenure in Congress to deal with this issue. Can we really get to the point where 

we are talking about the type of reform that you three are discussing if we don’t deal, in some way, with the problem we have 

with immigration and people who are in the country again without 

the benefit of citizenship? 

Mr. REINHARDT. Well, I served on the board of a Texas-based 

hospital company, and we had this very problem. On the front 

lines, you cannot tell when people come in bleeding or pregnant 

about to deliver. You cannot send them away. So we served them 

one way or the other. 

Mr. BURGESS. And, in fact, you are required to under federal law 

under IMTALLA. 

Mr. REINHARDT. IMTALLA, yes. And in New Jersey, it is even 

more. The whole thing has to be delivered. So most of the immigrants are actually working or have families where somebody 

works. And it seems to me we have let employers in this country 

off the hook much too easily. They should pay for the social services that the immigrants and their families consume, whether it is 

schooling or—they should be made to pay Social Security. And that 

includes even people who do shrubbery as they do in Princeton. 

One ought to be required by law to pay a prorated contribution to 

these people’s social services. But we have never actually done 

that. Quite a few people who employ undocumented aliens pay 

nothing into Social Security and get away with it. They have them 

as a subcontract, and God knows. So yes, I think you cannot not 

give health care to these families, particularly the children because, whether you like it or not, these children will one day be 

Americans. 

Mr. BURGESS. Well, many of them in fact are by virtue of the fact 

of the—— 

Mr. REINHARDT. That they were born here. 

Mr. BURGESS [continuing]. They were born here. Again I am not 

seeing from congressional leadership or from the White House any 

serious attempt at dealing with this issue. And I just think it is— 

I stipulate the points you made, Dr. Reinhardt, are accurate. But 

it is just going to be very, very difficult for us to deal with us this 

issue when we have that larger looming problem in Texas, New 

Mexico, Arizona, and California where it is just going to be very, 

very difficult to overcome. 


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Mr. REINHARDT. Well, there is a moral problem. If you make this 

great American health care available to people, people will flock 

here ever more. 

Mr. BURGESS. And that was the argument. 

Mr. REINHARDT. That is why the Congress sometimes says let us 

not do this because we are creating a magnet. But—— 

Mr. BURGESS. But we did that in S–CHIP. We essentially said 

that we are going to remove some of the barriers. And we have 

turned off the jobs magnet to some degree, but we have to be careful not to turn on the benefits magnet. 

Mr. REINHARDT. In the end, there is a doctor and a nurse and 

a hospital looking at this human being, and they cannot say no. 

Mr. BURGESS. Dr. Reinhardt, I will just stipulate that that is correct, and practically every night of my practice life, I was called to 

do just a delivery because IMTALLA said I would have a $50,000 

fine and some serious questions to answer if I did not respond 

within 30 minutes, and yet at the same time that same federal government failed to secure the borders. And the consequence, we in 

the hospitals are left on the front line. 

I didn’t mean to get so far down into that. I did want to ask a 

couple of questions about the federally qualified health center 

issues that Mr. Green brought up because the distributional issues 

are significant. While he has four or what did he say? How many 

did he have in Houston? It was way too many, whatever he said. 

We only have four in Dallas County, one in Tarrant County, none 

in Denton County where I represent significant numbers of people. 

The infant mortality rate in Tarrant County in some of the zip 

codes is phenomenally high, and we only have one federally qualified health center, not in the neighborhoods with those zip codes. 

So there it is not a question of access. We have a good county hospital in Tarrant County. The question is utilization. We have not 

put the clinics where the people are so that they will use them, and 

that is one of the great inequities. 

I have often wondered why we reimburse at a higher rate for 

Medicaid reimbursement for a federally qualified health center, 

and we won’t do the same thing for a physician in practice in the 

community to keep that physician involved and in practice. So, Dr. 

Reinhardt, you almost went there with the money should follow the 

individual. Can you expound upon that just a little bit? 

Mr. REINHARDT. Yes, I think in general, certainly in my profession, economics, we believe in competition. And therefore whether 

it is—scholarships should never be given to a medical school or a 

university. It should travel with the client, and that is why ideally 

people should have the same insurance. A doctor should get paid 

the same, no matter where they work. You are reimbursing a professional service, and it shouldn’t really depend on what location 

you do that. And so I sympathize very much with your thought. 

Mr. BURGESS. And what are the mechanisms—— 

Mr. PALLONE. We—— 

Mr. BURGESS [continuing]. That money could follow the individual? 

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Burgess, we—— 

Mr. REINHARDT. Universal—— 

Mr. PALLONE. You are over. This will be the last question. 


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Mr. REINHARDT. Universal insurance is, in fact, the mechanism. 

That is why some of us are so much for it. That if people have purchasing power, like a Canadian has a credit card, and with the 

credit card, every doctor gets paid the same, whether it is a poor 

child or a rich child. While in New Jersey, we have Medicaid $30 

for a pediatric visit, and for the commercial, $120. Canadians don’t 

do this. This is why I think the Canadian story is not really relevant to us at this time. They have a different social ethic. They 

look at life differently than we do. 

If you did a survey now in Canada, Canadians are not stupid. 

They are highly educated. They watch American TV. They have a 

democracy, and yet if you had a referendum whether they would 

want our system or keep theirs, overwhelmingly, I would bet a lot 

of AIG stock on that, overwhelmingly, you would find—well, it is 

still worth something. 

Mr. BURGESS. We will see to that actually. We will stipulate to 

that. 

Mr. REINHARDT. I will put real money on it, real New Jersey 

money. The Canadians would vote for their system. There are, of 

course, some who are not happy, and they can come here and do 

research. But by and large, when I go up—I am a Canadian too. 

When I go up there, by and large, people are very proud of their 

system. And I invite you to do it. Go to the airport. Talk to anyone. 

Mr. BURGESS. Yes, my father was a refugee from Canada so I understand. 

Mr. PALLONE. All right, we have to move on here. Next is Ms. 

DeGette. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Feder, I was wondering if you wanted to respond very briefly to this issue of the undocumented immigrants coming in and taking advantage of our 

system. 

Ms. FEDER. Thank you, Ms. DeGette. You saw me chomping at 

the bit. 

Ms. DEGETTE. I did. 

Ms. FEDER. I will be brief. I just wanted to make very clear that, 

although immigration is a very serious problem that does create serious problems for health providers, particularly in some areas, 

that the problem that we are talking about is we should not ever 

think that the bulk of people without health insurance coverage or 

the bulk of people who are facing affordability problems are immigrants, whether they are here legally or not legally. 

And I also believe that when we are talking about—we asked 

universal coverage or were talking about universal coverage, we 

are talking about universal coverage for people who are Americans 

and are here legally. And I just didn’t want that issue to get confused. 

Ms. DEGETTE. So if you were structuring the universal health 

care program, you wouldn’t necessarily structure it so that we were 

inviting people to come in and enroll. 

Ms. FEDER. I think that is absolutely true, and we have seen that 

people, as Dr. Reinhardt said, people are coming here as long as 

employers want to hire them and we don’t enforce our rules. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Right. 


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Ms. FEDER. And with the decline in the economy, they are not 

coming in those numbers anymore. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Right. 

Ms. FEDER. Although it is a very serious problem that I wouldn’t 

minimize and faces some institutions in particular ways, it would 

be a mistake to hold the whole health care system and all Americans hostage to that problem. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you. What I really want to talk to this 

panel about is this issue of a public plan alternative because I 

think that frankly as we move forward with drafting legislation in 

this committee, that is going to be one of the top issues of discussion and debate. And some people say well, we shouldn’t have a 

public alternative, I guess, because it leads us down a slippery 

slope towards socialized medicine or single payer or so on. 

But we actually do have one of our largest public health care systems right now has a public option and a private option. That is 

Medicare, and the Medicare fee-for-service option is the most popular option, and people like that. But more importantly, I think, if 

we didn’t retain the fee-for-service option when we did Medicare 

Advantage, we would have never realized that we weren’t getting 

more efficiencies in the private option that we had adopted. And 

frankly I was here when we did Medicare Advantage, and I 

thought that when we did the private alternative that it would 

save us money and it would cause us to revamp our fee-for-service 

program to get more efficiencies in that program. 

We all know now that, of course, it has not been the case, and 

that we are spending far more in the private alternative then we 

would have in the public. And so I guess maybe, Dr. Feder, I will 

start with you. I would like your comments on why you think it is 

important to have a public option if we are going to maintain the 

private competition that we have. 

Ms. FEDER. Yes, I think you nailed it, Congresswoman DeGette, 

when you said that essentially the public system can keep the private system honest. But we have evidence that private insurers are 

not negotiating effectively in terms of getting affordable health 

care. And if we have a public health insurance option, and remember because I think it gets misrepresented, as a choice, then we, 

you, the public can hold that plan accountable for bargaining effectively with providers, for delivering quality care, for being transparent, for all the things that we need insurance to be. And essentially it puts some pressure and makes a market that claims to be 

competitive but is not, it can make it work. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And just to follow up on something, Ms. Pipes. I 

never try to misconstrue what people who I disagree with say, but 

what I had heard Ms. Pipes saying is part of the way in Medicare 

and part of the way it would happen in this system that you would 

get the efficiencies is by ratcheting down reimbursement for medical services, and doctors wouldn’t want to provide those services. 

What would your response be to that, Doctor? 

Ms. FEDER. Well, I find these claims fascinating at a time when 

the Congress is responding to concerns about physicians in the 

Medicare program and responding to access problems by raising 

physician fee. And in Medicare, we make an extra effort to make 


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certain that we are paying appropriately, but that when access 

problems arise, that we, essentially you, enact higher rates. 

And we are talking about then a responsiveness to—people need 

access to care, and your constituents hold you responsible for that. 

So I don’t think this concern that somehow it is going to go to nothing or Medicare for all is—I don’t know where this is coming from. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Dr. Reinhardt. 

Mr. REINHARDT. Yes, I agree. I served on the physician payment 

review commission, your commission, and we every year did a survey of the elderly and asked do you have access to health care— 

and that is still part of what Med Pac does—and monitored it very, 

very closely. And we have rules of thumb; when we saw access becoming even a small problem, we would recommend to the Congress to raise rates. So that, in the Medicare program has, I think, 

been pretty well modulated. 

But there is another thing that really I find puzzling around the 

business roundtable. On the one hand, they complain that we are 

spending too much on health care, and then on the other hand 

though they are saying the public sector isn’t spending enough on 

health care, and then they also come out that government should 

stay small. And I sometimes in my simple mind try to put that all 

together. They say they want small government, but they want to 

pay more for Medicare so that their rates are somehow viewed the 

correct rate. Who is to say that private insurers aren’t overpaying? 

They say, I have so little bargaining power. In some places, say 

California, even a large company like Well Point cannot face down 

a hospital system. And who is to say the private sector isn’t overpaying? You know, you could make that case. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Shimkus. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, I will defer to whoever is next on 

this side if I may since I just want to listen. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Mr. Gingrey. 

Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Ms. DeGette was just 

referencing in Medicare that we have a—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. Would the gentleman yield? It is DeGette, and everybody including the President has been saying it wrong. So I 

would just like to—— 

Mr. GINGREY. Ms. DeGette. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you very much. 

Mr. GINGREY. And it is Diana and not Deana. Is that correct? 

Ms. DEGETTE. You got it. 

Mr. GINGREY. Thank you. I will remember that. But Ms. DeGette 

was talking about the public and private plan that we have within 

the Medicare system and that the private plan turned out to be so 

much more costly. The reason I bring that up, because, Dr. 

Reinhardt, in your presentation, you talked about the importance 

of rigorous cost effectiveness analysis. And I have concern that our 

way of scoring things in a static environment rather than a dynamic way of doing it. 

Medicare Advantage—and the President, of course, has certainly 

taken a swipe at Medicare Advantage and is going to cut that significantly to the chagrin, I think, of 10 million people who get their 

care through Medicare Advantage. 


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If it is true that end-of-life cost is the biggest cost of Medicare, 

the last month of life, then I think we might be judging that cost 

of Medicare Advantage prematurely. Now, I am not saying that it 

should be 115 percent compared to Medicare fee-for-service. Maybe 

it is a little too high, but in the final analysis, it seems to me that 

if we looked at this in a dynamic way, follow it all the way to the 

end of life, then it may turn out that Medical Advantage, the private versus the public, would be much more cost effective. 

And I worry in regard to what you were saying, Dr. Reinhardt, 

in rigorous cost effective analysis in regard to medications, in regard to biologicals, in regard to durable medical equipment or devices. That maybe in fact these would, by some rigorous cost effective analysis, almost like a Federal Reserve Board for health care, 

that these decisions would be made too early. And if we had an opportunity to wait and see in combination with other things, whether it was a cancer drug or a new surgical procedure, that in fact, 

in the long run, it would be cost effective. So I would like for you 

to respond to that for us. 

Mr. REINHARDT. Well, I mean first of all your point of ideally we 

would like to have a dynamic view is correct. I agree with this. 

Ideally what you would really like to have is a natural experiment 

where some people went into Medicare Advantage, some stayed 

with the traditional program, and you could follow them until they 

die and say what were the life cycle costs adjusting for illness and 

so on. That would be ideal obviously, and maybe you are right. It 

could be cheaper if they manage somehow the last month of life 

more efficiently. I am not sure there is any evidence—— 

Mr. GINGREY. Well, I would say this. It is very likely that those 

were managed efficiently over a number of years in regard to 

wellness and taking care of themselves and taking care of their 

medications. When it comes to be their final day on earth, it might 

be a catastrophic event like a heart attack or a stroke but not in 

an intensive care unit for months suffering from multiple 

horrendoplasties, as we used to say in medical parlance. 

Mr. REINHARDT. No, it is possible, I mean, and it is researchable. 

One could research it even now. You could give the ARC some 

money—and I speak here with a conflict of interest. I am a health 

services researcher, but we could research this. 

Mr. GINGREY. Yes, I think you could, and let me ask you one last 

question, Dr. Reinhardt, before my time runs out completely. You 

had an article published March 13 of this year in the ‘‘New York 

Times.’’ You pointed to two groups who comprised the ‘‘opposition 

to cost effectiveness analysis.’’ And you said one of those groups 

were manufacturers of pharmaceuticals and biotechnology products 

or of medical devices. But the second group, and this is what I 

want to address my question to. You said the second group are individuals who sincerely believe that health and life are priceless, 

and you went on and you said in describing this second group, you 

state that for them cost should never be allowed to enter clinical 

decisions. ‘‘It is an utterly romantic notion, and if I may so say, 

also an utterly silly one. No society could ever act consistently on 

such a credo.’’ That is the end of your quote. 

Dr. Reinhardt, do you believe that we, as individuals, in America 

should have the ability to value our own lives, or is this something 


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we should ask the government to do for us, i.e., ration that care 

when you get to be 90 years old and you need a hip replacement, 

do you just let them fall and break the hip and die of pneumonia? 

Or do they get the opportunity, if they value that, to get that hip 

replaced? 

Mr. REINHARDT. I cannot even tell you, Congressman Gingrey, 

how much I hoped someone would ask me this question because 

this is how I would think about it. Every American should have the 

right to value their own life any way they wish. But then the question is at whose expense. If it is at their own expense, by all 

means. But if you are dealing with a collective insurance fund, 

then those who preside over those funds do have, at some point, 

to ask themselves at what price do I buy additional life years, quality adjusted—we call them quallies—or additional health? And to 

say we don’t make airports as safe as they could be. Our air traffic 

control system is reckless, I think, from what you read, and what 

often near misses. And why don’t we do it? Over money. We may 

calculate our some fault in an unarmored Humvee. That was a calculated decision to say well, it would cost so much to have armored 

vehicles. We are going to take a chance of some Marines, and that 

is what the Congress does. 

So what I listed there is a paper that shows the value of human 

life legislators and people routinely put on their own life, and they 

are rather low numbers in many ways. And I raise the question 

why should health care be the only area in an economy in society 

where I have the right to say spend the limit, spend $5 million on 

me and let the taxpayer pick up the tab. I think that notion, to my 

mind, is romantic and, in fact, silly. 

Mr. PALLONE. We are—— 

Mr. GINGREY. Like a German philosopher of yesterday. 

Mr. PALLONE. We have to move on, Mr. Gingrey. I am sorry, but 

we just have a lot of people, and we got another panel. Next is Ms. 

Capps. 

Ms. CAPPS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to use my 

time really well with a great panel. And I have a question for each 

of you, starting with Ms. Pipes. In your testimony, you talked a lot 

about rationing care and waiting lists, and Canada does have bad 

wait times, but so does the United States. Twenty-three percent of 

adults reported having to wait over six days to get an appointment 

to see a doctor the last time they needed one. In the U.K., which 

also has a single payer system, it was only 15 percent. 

In addition, 34 percent of sick adults in America who had medical problems skipped important doctor visits because of cost. That 

is way more than the 4 percent in the U.K. and the 7 percent in 

Canada. 

Not to belabor that, because we are talking about American system that we want to try to reform, is there any data you can 

present to this committee showing that a new optional public 

health plan will create rationing times or wait times worse than 

what we are seeing right now? 

Ms. PIPES. Well, I haven’t done the exact research on that particular issue, but I think—— 

Ms. CAPPS. So there is no documentation that you know of? 


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Ms. PIPES. Not that I know of, but I can look into it and find that 

out because I think—— 

Ms. CAPPS. That would be great. If you can find it, I would love 

to have it for our—— 

Ms. PIPES. Because I think, you know, Canada does have long 

waits, and people that have money come to the United States and 

pay out of pocket. 

Ms. CAPPS. You said that in your testimony. 

Ms. PIPES. So it is very important that we improve the U.S. system so that people can get better access. 

Ms. CAPPS. Exactly. 

Ms. PIPES. And that is why I support universal choice because 

a young man of 30, you know, wants to get a high deductible—— 

Ms. CAPPS. Thank you. 

Ms. PIPES [continuing]. Insurance plan. Why should he have to 

pay $12,000 to $15,000 to cover my in vitro fertilization? You know 

what I mean? 

Ms. CAPPS. Thank you very much, and if you can find that information for us, I think it would help us to make some good decisions. Dr. Feder, I mentioned the story in my opening minute about 

a constituent of mine who lost her job and had a reoccurrence of 

her cancer. She did well in the country that I represent because 

they have a particular public access program that worked for her. 

But I want you to be able to elaborate briefly but for our value 

what you were saying about how when someone loses employer coverage, their ability to purchase coverage in the non-group market 

is limited at best. 

Ms. FEDER. Yes, well it is. You are absolutely right, but in your 

community she had an option. She had what is called a pre-existing condition. She was sick, and you are going to hear on the next 

panel from my Georgetown colleague, Karen Pollitz, who can give 

you examples, a tremendous number of examples of this kind. That 

people in the non-group market essentially does not—either denies 

people who have conditions, rules out coverage for the body parts 

that have been damaged, limits the benefits, or charges higher 

rates. 

The market simply does not work for people. It is not any kind 

of safety net, and the evidence on the non-group market is that 

rather than people falling into that system and getting picked up, 

it ends up people are healthier in that market than in the employer-sponsored system. 

So this woman, without your plan, when she most needed care, 

would have lost any means to get access to it. And we know looking 

at the evidence in general on the uninsured that people are actually dying in that circumstance. 

Ms. CAPPS. Thank you very much, and I—— 

Ms. PIPES. I mean because people get their insurance through 

their employer and it is not portable if they lose their job, this is 

the reasons why changing the tax code so that people can go into 

the individual market. And also I think we will see more competition and new insurance companies that will deal with specific people. 

Ms. CAPPS. Well, we will see about that. 

Ms. FEDER. They don’t compete for sick people. 


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Ms. CAPPS. That is right. If there is anybody who can show a 

plan where they compete for sick people, we would love to hear 

about that too. 

There is another topic that is very dear to my heart, Dr. 

Reinhardt, I saved for you. In the United States, we spend nearly 

$7,500 per person on health care. It is the most expensive system 

in the world, if I am not mistaken. Yet in terms of maternal mortality, women dying in childbirth, we rank 41st out of 171 countries. So there is a disparity there. How can we now as we want 

to reform our system—what are some proposals specifically that 

would improve issues like maternal health, a classic indicator, according to the millennium challenge, for the overall health of a nation while striving for lower costs? 

Mr. REINHARDT. Well, obviously part of the reason why women 

die has to do with issues outside of the health system, and every 

health services researcher would recognize this. But when you 

come to infant mortality or maternal death, the health system does 

have a contribution to make. And I think we are falling short. It 

is because people often do not have insurance particularly when 

you are just slightly over the Medicaid limit or live in a state with 

a low threshold. 

And I must say as a European and ex-Canadian, I am stunned 

at this. I believe the children are the treasure of a nation. They are 

the future generation. And I always have said to me, mothers are 

on par with soldiers. They do a patriotic service because they bring 

us the next generation. We should give them medals rather than 

the way we treat them. 

And I remember I once gave a speech called ‘‘Motherhood and 

Apple Pie’’ where I said I do buy the idea that Americans love 

apple pie, but I am not so sure about motherhood. I don’t think in 

this country we respect mothers enough. And people who know me 

know that is a big deal with me. We do not respect mothers 

enough. 

Mr. PALLONE. We—— 

Ms. PIPES. It would be worthwhile you looking at some of the 

work that June O’Neill has done on infant mortality rates because 

other countries—we have the best neonatal procedures and clinics 

and facilities in this country. And often in other countries, people 

are not counted as live births. And so look at the work that June 

O’Neill has done because you have to compare apples with apples. 

Ms. CAPPS. I was talking about maternal mortality. 

Ms. PIPES. Right. 

Ms. CAPPS. But our infant mortality rate is not so hot either. 

Ms. PIPES. Well, but I think you have to compare on an equal 

playing field how other countries treat—what they count as infant 

mortality rate versus this country because we keep a lot of babies 

alive that wouldn’t even be counted as live births in other countries. So it is very important, look at June O’Neill’s work on this 

issue. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Next is the gentleman from Arizona, 

Mr. Shadegg. 

Mr. SHADEGG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Pipes, I would like 

to begin with you. I think I have heard you describe what you favor 

as universal choice. Are you familiar with plans that have been inVerDate Mar 15 2010 23:52 Mar 23, 2012 Jkt 067813 PO 00000 Frm 00075 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A813.XXX A813

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troduced that would provide every American with a stipend? That 

is either a tax credit or a refundable advancible tax credit that is 

cash to go buy a health care plan for every single person. Are you 

familiar with those? And would you describe that as universal 

choice? 

Ms. PIPES. Yes, I would, and Mr. McCain during the campaign 

was sort of hit by Mr. Obama saying—Mr. Obama said Mr. McCain 

would like to tax your health care. In fact, the plan would be—— 

Mr. SHADEGG. Well, I don’t want to talk about his plan. I want 

to talk about some quick questions, and I have a long list. 

Ms. PIPES. So but I think it—— 

Mr. SHADEGG. Would you say we have a patient choice driven 

system now? 

Ms. PIPES. No, I would not. I would say 47 percent of health care 

is in the hands of government today, and we have a small sector 

7 million people have patient-centered health care. 

Mr. SHADEGG. Would you include in that patient centered health 

care plans that are picked by your doctor? Don’t we really have a 

third-party control system in America today where your health insurance plan is picked by your employer, and then plan then picks 

your doctor, and you have virtually no choice? 

Ms. PIPES. Absolutely. And that is why if we can move away 

from employer-based care and move up the individual market, new 

competition will come in. New insurance plans will be available, 

and people will be able to choose the type of plan that fits their 

individual—— 

Mr. SHADEGG. What if we let them choose from the private market or choose their employer’s plan, but put the choice with them? 

Ms. PIPES. That is an excellent idea, yes. 

Mr. SHADEGG. Would you say that we have a healthy market in 

health insurance in America today? 

Ms. PIPES. No, I would not. 

Mr. SHADEGG. This represents the northern Virginia residential 

phone book. All of the people in that book get to buy auto insurance if they have an auto, right? 

Ms. PIPES. Right. 

Mr. SHADEGG. If I put up here the northern Virginia phone book, 

it would be a fraction of this size, would it not? 

Ms. PIPES. Yes. 

Mr. SHADEGG. Maybe a fifth or less. Perhaps that kind of a 

graphic of the health insurance market versus the auto insurance 

market today. That is only employers get to buy health insurance, 

and they make the decision for their employees. Whereas in auto 

insurance, everybody gets to make their own choice and gets to 

pick a plan, and we have a much healthier market. Wouldn’t you 

agree? 

Ms. PIPES. Absolutely, and, you know, the average employer 

spends $12,000 per year on an employee’s health plan, maybe even 

$15,000. But the thing is that not all employees need that much 

health care, and there would be more competition if people could 

choose, like in the auto insurance, the type of insurance that fits 

their needs. And some will be a lot cheaper. 

Mr. SHADEGG. So you would favor a system where they get to 

make their own choices? 


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Ms. PIPES. Absolutely. 

Mr. SHADEGG. And moving away from a system where there is 

a third-party control? 

Ms. PIPES. Right. 

Mr. SHADEGG. I take it then you would not agree for moving from 

a system that is third-party controlled by your employer to thirdparty controlled by the government? Is that going to solve the problem in your view? 

Ms. PIPES. I think that if the government takes over the health 

care system, and including this public plan within the National Insurance Exchange, it is going to reduce people’s choices, cost are 

going to go up, and ultimately care will have to be rationed as it 

is in countries like Canada and the U.K. 

Mr. SHADEGG. Dr. Feder said, and I agree with her, that affordability is the real key here. We are worried about expense. We are 

worried about how expensive health care has become. 

Ms. PIPES. Right. 

Mr. SHADEGG. And how expensive health insurance has become. 

Do you think it is a coincidence that we are experiencing a huge 

spiraling costs in health care costs where it is all third-party control and the market doesn’t include all these people, it just includes 

this little business phone, that we are only experiencing that spiraling cost in the one place in America where there is genuinely 

no market? Is that a coincidence? 

Ms. PIPES. Well, as you have said, I mean we don’t have a free 

market in health care. We have a lot of government in health care. 

We have the third party payer system, and people are not in 

charge of their health care. We don’t get our life insurance, our 

long-term care insurance through our employer. 

Mr. SHADEGG. We have pretty well divorced the consumer of 

health care services from the payer of health care services. 

Ms. PIPES. Right, exactly. Absolutely. 

Mr. SHADEGG. And once divorcing them, costs have gone up dramatically once we have divorced the consumer from the payer. 

Ms. PIPES. Because we have in this country what you call first 

dollar coverage. When people they pay nothing—if employees don’t 

pay anything for their premium or they pay a little bit, or they pay 

no copay or a small copay, first dollar coverage means when people 

think something is cheap or free, they demand a lot more but—— 

Mr. SHADEGG. And they think it is cheaper right now because 

their employer is paying for it. 

Ms. PIPES. Yes, and then—— 

Mr. SHADEGG. Wait, let me switch topics. A lot of discussion here 

today about a public plan. If we institute a public plan, won’t politicians have a tendency to increase the subsidy of that public plan 

year after year after year as they have done with other public offerings? 

Ms. PIPES. Well, I think if you look at Canada, when the government took over the health care system in 1974, they were completely taken aback by how much demand there was for a program 

that people think of as virtually free because they don’t know how 

much they are paying through the tax system. And it went up and 

up, and then government has to put a cap to say we can’t—— 


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Mr. SHADEGG. I am almost out of time, but if we let the government create a public plan and increase its subsidy year after 

year—I really have two questions. One, how will the private sector 

stay in competition with that if the government sector’s subsidy 

goes up year after year? And second, if the government both offers 

a plan and also sets the rules for its plan and the private plan, 

aren’t we allowing the government to be both a player in the game 

and a referee in the same game? 

Ms. PIPES. Right, and that was what I mentioned in my testimony. If you have guaranteed issue, community rating, and a lot 

of mandates, that is going to push up the costs of the plans. And 

if the government prices their plan slightly cheaper, you are going 

to crowd out the private insurers and leave us with a taxpayer 

funded plan, which ultimately will be too expensive and end up 

with rationed care. 

Mr. SHADEGG. You—— 

Ms. PIPES. It is not going to help the American people get the 

finest health care available. 

Mr. SHADEGG. You would rather give them cash and let them 

make a choice? 

Ms. PIPES. Right, absolutely. 

Mr. SHADEGG. Thank you. 

Mr. PALLONE. All right, thank you. Gentlewoman from Illinois, 

Ms. Schakowsky. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you. If I could just ask each of you. Do 

you think that health care is a right? 

Ms. FEDER. Yes. 

Ms. PIPES. No. 

Mr. REINHARDT. Health care is too big a label. Some kind of 

health care is absolutely a right viewed in this country. It is not 

in the Constitution. However, think of someone lying in the street. 

A car hit them. They are bleeding. Does anyone in this room think 

you don’t have a right to be picked up and brought to the nearest 

hospital? Does any American think that right does not exist? So 

yes, some health care, a lot of it, is a right, and some of it like plastic surgery is not. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Well, that is not necessary health care. 

Mr. REINHARDT. Cosmetic surgery. 

Ms. PIPES. And we do have, as someone mentioned earlier, 

IMTALLA. I think it was—that we have IMTALLA, which is a law 

that says no one can be denied access to emergency room—— 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I know. I am just asking if you think it is a 

right. You said no. 

Ms. PIPES. No, because how do you determine how open-ended 

that right is and what it will cost? And so I think that we are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Yes, I want—— 

Ms. PIPES. You mean access—— 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. It is my time, and I reclaim it. What would 

you say, Ms. Pipes though, that 87 percent of Canadians view the 

elimination of public health care as a negative? This is according 

to McGill professor Stuart Sirroca, author of the study. It was the 

highest ranking opinion in the entire survey, that they would not 

want to eliminate their public health care system? 


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Ms. PIPES. Well, there are poll numbers that have come out of 

Decima that the majority of Canadians, 47 percent versus 41 percent, are dissatisfied with the Canadian health care system. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Well, you spend about 10 percent of GDP, you 

said, on health care—— 

Ms. PIPES. Right. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY [continuing]. On health care in Canada. What 

do we spend, Ms. Feder, in—— 

Ms. PIPES. Sixteen percent here. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. OK. 

Mr. REINHARDT. More than that. 

Ms. PIPES. But it is going up, yes. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Yes, so in other words, perhaps if more were 

spent on the Canadian health care system, it could serve more people. But I am not looking for a comment now. 

I am concerned about this notion, and you referred to it earlier, 

Dr. Reinhardt, and I would appreciate if you or Dr. Feder would 

want to comment on that. The United States, it seems to me, does 

in fact ration health care. That the dollar bill is essentially that ration card and that when you have more than half of Americans 

who say that they haven’t gotten health care, they have postponed 

or have completely eliminated health care that they need, that 

clearly this health care is being rationed. That people—we don’t 

count the people not in line because they can’t afford it. And I 

think this is really an important point about comparing our system 

with a Canadian system where they actually count people that wait 

in line. Either one of you or both. 

Ms. FEDER. Yes, I appreciate the question, Congresswoman Schakowsky. And the first point I would make is, as you were making 

earlier, is that we are not talking about turning the American system into the Canadian system. We are talking about slowing the 

growth and making sure—of health care costs, and making sure everybody has affordable insurance and affordable care. 

And as Dr. Reinhardt said earlier, that when people can’t afford 

care, when they don’t have insurance coverage or there are holes 

in their insurance coverage, care is being rationed. And I find very 

interesting not just people who aren’t showing up because they 

know they can’t afford it, but how much do you hear from your constituents about the runaround they get from their insurance companies, the denials, the submitting the claims over and over again, 

the not being able to get service? 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. All the time. 

Ms. FEDER. Exactly, so what is it? We think the system works? 

It is being compared to a straw man. What we need to do is to fix 

our system, get better value for the dollar and make sure that everybody gets access to care when they need it. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. And prescriptions left in the drawer because 

they can’t afford to fill them. Dr.—— 

Ms. FEDER. Exactly. We have the evidence of it. 

Mr. REINHARDT. It so happens I have written three papers on 

this rationing issues. One, in fact, entitled ‘‘Styles of Rationing: 

Canada Versus the U.S.’’ And there is no question they do ration 

with a queue for some procedures up there, and there is no question we ration through price and ability to pay. And to deny that 


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defies anything any freshman is ever taught if they have a good 

economic professor. I could show you textbook after textbook from 

people who are actually conservative politically who says the role 

of prices is to ration. And we use price as a rationing device. 

There was a recent study out—Judy, you may know it—that 

showed for low income people, they actually consume less health 

care because they very often are uninsured. But if we compare people who do not have insurance with those who have insurance, 

Jack Hadley’s numbers, the uninsured get 43 percent of the care 

that similarly situated insured get. And to deny that that is rationing borders on the mischievous. I think that is rationing, and we 

are discussing styles of rationing. Canadians have a different view 

about what is equitable than what apparently we have. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you. Bottom line, we want to do an 

American system that works for everyone. Thank you. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Shimkus. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I did, by listening 

appreciate a lot of the comments, and I won’t be long. Following 

up on John Shadegg’s comments about buying power, just two 

quick questions. There is a debate for those who propose about it 

being a mandatory or voluntary system. If you use the automobile 

insurance debate, if you drive in states, you have to have insurance. 

I am of the point of view that if you went to a private option, 

what is called the public choice, however we are going to define 

that, that it would be—everyone would have to cover—I mean you 

would not have a choice to be out. Everyone would have to have 

something. You would also have to force then the insurers to have 

the wide breadth of everyone involved. I mean you couldn’t allow 

them to cherry pick is kind of the terminology I use. And it is a 

mandatory system. 

And the final thing is there would have to be the basic package 

would have to be a catastrophic package. I mean the cost shifting, 

what goes on in a hospital, and what everybody is worried about 

is catastrophic care. And maybe you could allow people through 

health savings accounts or just their own dollars to do the preventative care, to go to the doctor for the cold and flu and all that other 

stuff. 

What do you think about that premise? And, Dr. Reinhardt, if 

you would just then mention, and Ms. Pipes and Dr. Feder? And 

that would be the only question I—that is what has been bubbling 

around in my thought process, how do you get to the 44 million or 

47 uninsured Americans? They have to have insurance. They have 

to have a catastrophic package. What would you say to those comments? 

Mr. REINHARDT. Well, ultimately, when you discuss universal 

coverage and when do you know how have you reached this fairly. 

The only metric that really makes sense to me would be to say 

what fraction of a family’s discretionary income, after food, housing, and shelter, should a family in America be required to contribute towards it own heath care. And presumably that percentage 

would be small for a waitress or a cab driver, and it would be higher for a full professor at Princeton. You could easily ask me to contribute 10, 12 percent of our household budget towards health care, 


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and you would not ask a waitress to do that. So that is the first 

thing. 

Now with respect to the choice market for private insurance, if 

you put community rating on, say you must charge everyone the 

same, sick or healthy, and guaranteed issue, if you don’t couple 

that with mandatory insurance, you will get a death spiral of private insurance, which we actually see in New Jersey happening. So 

those two go together. 

The alternative model would be that you say oK, we let the private insurers medically underwrite. So if somebody is sick, they 

pay a huge premium. Somebody has AIDS, they pay $80,000 a 

year. And someone who is very healthy gets it very cheap. But then 

you would have to have a bureaucracy that could give subsidies to 

the chronically ill for the huge premiums that they are charged and 

subsidize them to the tune that ultimately you are happy with that 

percentage. And this is really something. I think my colleague 

Mark Polly at UPenn, and who is the co-author—had a very lovely 

paper on this. How do you know that you are equitable? And he 

proposes this metric. Adam Wagstaff at the World Bank had the 

same thing for the International—— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Yes, sir, and I don’t want to cut you off, but I do 

want Ms. Pipes and Dr. Feder, briefly. I only have a minute left. 

If you could kind of summarize that quickly. Sorry, Dr. Reinhardt. 

Ms. PIPES. And you mentioned mandatory car insurance, but 15 

percent of drivers in this country, even though all states but two 

have mandatory care insurance, are driving around without car insurance. And we have seen the experiment in Massachusetts where 

now after—it will be three years old in April—that still 2.5 percent 

of people are uninsured. 

And about 60 percent of the people who are people signed up for 

the Commonwealth Care, the subsidized thing. So it is very hard 

to take the American mind set and ensure and make them do—I 

mean Hillary Clinton said the only way you could enforce a mandate was to garnish the wages. I don’t think that is the American 

way. And so I think it is very hard. But if we have, you know, universal choice, and people can choose the system that best suits 

them, I think we will get a lot of those 45.7 million Americans 

going into the insurance market. There is nothing wrong with having a high risk pool for people who are falling between the cracks. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you. Dr. Feder with the chairman’s permission. 

Ms. FEDER. Yes, is it okay? 

Mr. PALLONE. Yes, sure. 

Ms. FEDER. I will be quick. I was interested in what you said 

about making rules for insurance because as I listen to Mr. Shadegg, no matter how big that phone book gets of insurance companies, if 20 percent of the people account for 80 percent of the spending we spend on health care when we get sick, insurers always win 

if they insure us when we are healthy and avoid us when we are 

sick. So you have to have rules. It has to be group insurance. That 

is the only way it can work. 

I am less concerned about mandates than I am concerned about 

making sure that everybody has the wherewithal to buy insurance 

so that means subsidies, making those adequate. And also I think 


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facilitating enrollment in many ways can get everybody into the 

system so that we fix it no only—people don’t walk around with a 

U for uninsured on their foreheads. There is a problem in the 

whole system, and we need to make it work for everybody. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Mr. Gonzalez. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. First just 

a couple of observations. Trying to use the car insurance as an 

analogy is a terrible mistake because if it operated like health care 

providers what would happen is your first accident or speeding 

ticket, the insurer would drop you. Then you would go to the next 

insurance company, and they would say you had a pre-existing condition and wouldn’t offer you any insurance. 

The other observation is anybody that doesn’t believe that our 

health care system is broken would be those individuals that presently have coverage, number one, but even out of those, you would 

have to say it be those that are healthy and haven’t attempted to 

use the coverage. 

I am going to quote from a paper from 2004. I get these all the 

time from a physician friend of mine. Every time we have a hearing, he will send me an email and refer me to articles, but I am 

going to agree with this article. And I think it is going to embrace 

some of the concepts that have been advocated by members on the 

other side of the aisle here in the committee. 

And this is by Michael Porter and Elizabeth Ulmstead-Teasburg. 

‘‘We believe that competition is the root of the problem with U.S. 

health care performance, but this does not mean we advocate a 

state-controlled system or a single payer system.’’ Of course what 

we have here is we are talking about a public option, which is separate because those approaches would make things only worse. ‘‘On 

the contrary, competition is also the solution, but the nature of the 

competition in health care must change. Our research shows that 

competition in the health care system occurs at the wrong level 

over the wrong things in the wrong geographic markets and at the 

wrong time. Competition has actually been all but eliminated just 

where and when it is most important. The health care system can 

achieve stunning gains in quality and efficiency, and employers, 

the major purchasers, of health care services, could lead the transformation.’’ 

This paper was written 2004. Jury was out. Jury has come in. 

Employers have not been able to do it. Someone has suggested that 

a well-educated consumer will be able to do it as long as we give 

vouchers or some—and we know that we don’t have that level of 

competency out there, through no fault of the consumer, of course. 

I would like comments from Dr. Reinhardt and Dr. Feder as to 

the way I view this without trying to be married to any kind of ideology to the point of a faith or religion that doesn’t allow us to discuss this thing rationally and in good faith. 

I believe that what we are espousing here and hopefully will 

have a bill which is going to be a public option will be the vehicle 

that will allow us to bring into the marketplace those wonderful 

ideas of competition, consumer choice, education, quality, efficiency, 

and get our biggest benefit out of every dollar. Is this what we see 

here today? That is what I really think we are discussing. Because 


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we are really talking about concept at this point. And we may 

bring into immigration and other things, but those are issues that 

we will have for another day. 

But overall, conceptually speaking, is that what this will bring 

to this debate as far as a public option? Dr. Reinhardt. 

Mr. REINHARDT. Well, this paper was in the ‘‘Harvard Business 

Review’’ by them and then followed by a huge tome that they 

wrote, and a number of us reviewed it in ‘‘Health Affairs.’’ My view 

is their vision is correct but very utopian because somehow they 

pretend that you can slice all ill health into episodes that begin 

and end and that you can get physicians and hospitals and convalescent centers to build little groups that specialize, little focus 

factories as Reggie Hertslinger calls them, that specialize in this, 

and then advertise their price for the whole bundle and have a 

quality rating. And they don’t even say who would do that, who 

would rate the quality. 

So as a concept it is good, and I think we are gingerly moving 

that way. But it will take at least 20 years before you would have 

realized that. But it is true. A public health plan does have the advantage of being able to experiment with that just like a private 

plan. 

I would urge you to think—they always say Medicare wasn’t an 

innovator. Who developed the DRGs? It was Medicare, copied now 

around the world. Who developed the resource-based relative value 

scale for physicians? It was Medicare now copied by every private 

insurance plan. So I believe the vision they had is good, and competition is a good thing. And none of us are against competition. 

But in the meantime, we have American families in dire need. 

We cannot wait for Utopia, and we have to make sure one of the 

principles—the President said American families should not go 

broke over health care. I think on either side of the aisle—— 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Dr. Reinhardt, I do want to give Dr. Feder an opportunity, and I only have a minute left. I apologize. 

Ms. FEDER. I am for affordability, to finish Dr. Reinhardt’s sentence, but I—and I would say that what we are talking about in 

terms of paying more effectively for medical care is what we are 

talking about. So whether it is episode-based or better rewards for 

primary care or refining what we do in the existing system where 

we are overpaying within some DRGs, we have a lot of room for 

improvement. And what you have put forward is that a public 

health insurance option can be a leader, not only in payment reform but also in managing chronic illness and promoting prevention. And we focus so heavily on fees because that is, I think, another straw man. What we need to focus on is leadership and accountability to us as an option in the health insurance system. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. The gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands, Ms. Christensen. 

Ms. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to also 

thank the panelists this morning. I think the discussion will hopefully guide us through the minefield that we face trying to get to 

universal coverage and hopefully help us to shape a bill that we 

can get passed here and in the Senate and signed by the President. 

My first question is to Dr. Reinhardt and to Dr. Feder. I have 

a little bit of discomfort around the public plan, which both of you 


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support as well as many others because—help me understand. Is 

this the same as Medicaid or different than Medicaid? Are you 

going to have Medicaid for the poor, and would there be a public 

health plan for everybody else? Wouldn’t that be continuing the 

same kind of two-tiered system that we are trying to get away 

from? And shouldn’t it just be one public plan that Medicaid patients would have paid for them and others pay in according to 

their income? Or is that what you envision anyway? 

Mr. REINHARDT. Well, as a practical matter, you would probably 

have to go with a separate plan because Medicaid involves the 

state, and that system, to fuse that with a public plan, which I 

think would be ideal, would be very difficult because the states 

might object to that. And then there would be an issue of the fiscal 

transfers to make that possible. 

Ms. FEDER. Yes, I would just say to think of a public health insurance plan not as Medicaid, but think of it as a publicly owned, 

publicly accountable insurance option that you would be able to 

choose along side private insurance options, with everyone having 

a guaranteed standardized set of benefits. So they would compete 

on their ability to deliver care efficiently. Couldn’t discriminate 

based on health status. 

And I would distinguish that from the importance of retaining 

Medicaid. Not only do we have statutory law that provides statutes 

that protect very low-income people that we should extend, I think, 

to all people below poverty. 

But the whole body of law defined through litigation, that actually protects very low-income people. And I think to disrupt that 

would be a mistake. 

Ms. CHRISTENSEN. It is not that I want to disrupt it. It is just 

that Medicaid has not been really providing the kind of outcomes 

that we want to see. 

Ms. FEDER. Your concern—— 

Ms. CHRISTENSEN. But, you know, we can fix that as well. 

Ms. FEDER. Your concern is well taken, and that gets to whether 

we are paying providers adequately to serve people. So we want to 

keep the protections, which, if we have it as a public health insurance plan among choices, is not going to have as generous benefits 

as Medicaid has. 

Ms. CHRISTENSEN. And, Dr. Reinhardt, one of our people on the 

other panel, Dr.—Professor Baiker, I guess, spends a considerable 

part of her written testimony on the problem of the sick and the 

uninsured, which is a population group that I am particularly concerned about. We spend a lot of our time and focus on eliminating 

health disparities in poor racial and ethnic minorities, rural individuals, and they would be sicker and prominently among the uninsured. 

And because they are sicker, bringing them into the system, Professor Baiker would say would drive up the cost of care. It drives 

up the cost of care now, affects the quality of care for the uninsured. So how do we insure that their high cost—because they are 

bringing them to make sure that they have access to care. How do 

we work the system so that it doesn’t drive up—so that we keep 

insurance affordable and still provide that high level of service at 


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the outlet? Or should we just make the investment and not worry, 

you know, know that it is going to pay off in the long run? 

Mr. REINHARDT. Well, I wouldn’t say make the investment and 

not worry about it. I would say make the investment and then 

worry about a long-term strategy to take costs into our gun sights 

and really start looking at how much, for example, do we spend on 

administration that buys no health care that could be reduced, 

these Winberg variations I talked about in Medicare, and you have 

them in the private sector as well. 

So I think cost control, we ought to be able to do this more 

cheaply than we are in America. Even the business roundtable says 

that, but you can’t wait. These American families are hard pressed. 

They are facing a deep recession. There will be ever more of them, 

and to say if there is somebody who is poor and sick and now we 

serve them, and that will drive up cost, I would say yes, it will. But 

that is why you are doing it. 

Ms. CHRISTENSEN. And this does not eliminate the need for focusing more on prevention or other programs to eliminate health 

disparities. It is part of the testimony in the other panel, and I 

wanted to get a response on that. 

Ms. Pipes, despite your data that shows that the Canadian system may not be working as well as many purport it to be, how do 

you explain the 20 or 23 percent value gap? Our country is running 

20 or 23 percent behind yours on the value we get for health care? 

How do you reconcile those two things? 

Ms. PIPES. Well, I think that, you know, Canadians, a lot of Canadians come to the United States and get health care when they 

are on waiting lists. So I think it is very hard, when the government runs the health care system, to actually measure, you know, 

actual comparisons between a totally government-run system and 

a system that is a hybrid of a number of different types. So I think, 

you know, I don’t know where your number comes from. But, you 

know, I haven’t analyzed that number, and I would be interested 

in it. 

But I will say that 250 Canadian doctors leave Canada every 

year to come and practice in the United States, not just for the 

money because they can make more money, but because they can 

practice the type of medicine that they are trained to practice because doctors in Canada are basically union members. 

I mean Dr. Reinhardt mentioned that when you work in a province, whether you work in British Columbia, your medical association negotiates your fee with the provincial government. My cousin 

is a corneal transplant specialist. He hasn’t had an increase in four 

years because the government is in a deficit situation. And so doctors, you know, it doesn’t matter whether you are the best cardiac 

surgeon or the worst, everyone gets paid the same. And it destroys 

the incentive to attract the best people into health care and into 

medicine. 

And so, you know, we want to continue to have—America has the 

best. People come from all over the world to get health care here. 

Whether it is Silvio Berlesconi coming from Italy to get a pacemaker. We need to make some changes to build on the system we 

have and not break it down and have a public health plan that I 

think will crowd out the private insurers because when you are 


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adding tremendous cost with guaranteed issue, community rating, 

and these mandates. 

So I just think that universal choice will lead us to universal coverage because young people—17 million Americans earning over 

$50,000 a year, two-thirds of them are young people. And they 

don’t need every single aspect. They want insurance to be insurance for catastrophes. 

Ms. CHRISTENSEN. Well—— 

Mr. PALLONE. Your time is over. Ms. Castor. 

Ms. CASTOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the panel. 

I would like to go back to what is driving these huge increases over 

the past decade in the cost of health care and recall that health insurance premiums have outpaced wage growth. From ’99 to 2008, 

premiums grew at three times the rate of wages, and, Dr. 

Reinhardt, in your testimony, you said that we had seen that just 

over the past seven years, the average total outlay on health care 

for a family from all sources has nearly doubled. 

And folks back home, they want to know why. It is just out of 

control. One easy answer has been when I go to the hospitals, that 

is an easy case because they say the uncompensated care, the folks 

that come into the ER that do not have health insurance and have 

chronic disease or something. That translates to them. They get 

that, and they understand we are—if you have private insurance, 

they are subsidizing part of that uncompensated care. 

The hospitals in my area, in turn, have developed a clinic system 

with very low administrative costs. It is a partnership with the private doctors, private hospitals, and nonprofits. And it is saving everyone money. But what else is driving these astronomical increases? Lessons that we can learn moving forward as we develop 

this public choice option? 

Mr. REINHARDT. Well, the American system is expensive because 

we have structured it to make the demand side weak and the supply side strong. And all the other nations that are cheaper have a 

strong demand side or a stronger demand side and a weaker supply side. And it is really how you apportion the market power. I 

mentioned that even in a large insurer like Well Point had real 

trouble negotiating with the Sutter Health System in California. 

Because it is a big system, you cannot run a health insurance plan 

without having that in your network. And therefore they had all 

the market power. 

So I think it is quite clear. It is part of the reason why we have 

a very luxurious system overstocked. You read Med Pac. We have 

too many MRI machines. Canada may have too few, but everyone 

agrees we have too many. It is because we essentially turned over 

a disproportionate amount of power to the supply side of the system. 

Ms. FEDER. To answer in a slightly different way, I think your 

constituents will have had the experience of being bumped from 

doctor to doctor, having tests duplicated, finding it impossible to 

get—being stuck in a hospital, not able to get out, seeing attempts 

at treatment that seem to be, not to work. 

What we are lacking and what we are talking about with comparative effectiveness research is to provide an information base, 

real evidence. So that you don’t go to what Uwe is talking about, 


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the supply side. You don’t go to the pharmaceutical companies to 

find out which medication you need. You have an actual evidence 

base that enables you to know, enables doctors and patients to decide together on what works and what doesn’t. 

And we can refine our repayment mechanism so that we are actually able to encourage and reward the provision of services that 

work and the discouragement of services that don’t. There is no 

mechanism for that now, and we are talking about developing that, 

not in a punitive way, not in an arbitrary way. In a way that enables physicians and patients to choose. 

Ms. CASTOR. You know, let me ask you all this. I am starting to 

hear much greater concern as folks realize the astronomical salaries in the corporate sector in health care, and the HMOs are not 

immune to this. And I wonder if you see any analogy in what is 

going on in the financial system to health care. This is again a segment where the government—the taxpayers are subsidizing private 

HMOs, and CEOs are making a multi, multi-million dollar, we are 

talking about $25 million, $50 million per year. Is this also a factor 

in the high costs? Shouldn’t some of this be plowed back into people’s health and not paid out in these astronomical salaries? 

Mr. REINHARDT. Well, if you think of the United—former United CEO who had $1.6 billion, the bulk of that income actually came 

from stock options, which is taken away from shareholders and 

customers. So one has to be somewhat careful of how that salary 

is composed. If $50 million were a salary booked into payroll expense and added to the premiums, then, of course it would be driving health care costs. But if it comes out of stock options, then it 

is another story, and he got $1.6 billion simply because during his 

reign, the stock went up and up. 

What is much more troublesome to me with private insurance is 

that, as an industry, I think they have not done enough to reduce 

the administrative cost of health care, that the amount of money 

they need to run the business is higher than I think it would be 

if they were all electronic, had a common nomenclature, common 

claim forms, et cetera. 

The president of Johns Hopkins mentioned in a speech not long 

ago, he deals with 700 distinct managed care contracts, each with 

different terms. And so if you were to look at a Canadian—there 

was just a program. They were looking at a Canadian hospital and 

American hospitals in terms of the billing clerks. You would be 

shocked at the difference. That is where the real money is, not so 

much CEO salaries. 

Ms. PIPES. Well, also I think that Dr. Ben Zyker of the Pacific 

Research Institute did a study comparing administrative costs of 

government programs versus the private sector, and there are a lot 

of things that aren’t included in the government Medicare and 

Medicaid. So I think you should take a look at the study. 

Ms. CASTOR. Well, that is interesting because the example of my 

local community that is a collaboration of the hospitals and doctors 

and our county government, our administrative costs are way, way 

low. And that has been proven out for a number—— 

Ms. PIPES. Well, I urge you to look—— 

Mr. PALLONE. We are going to have to end on this one. Sorry. 

Mr. Braley from Iowa. 


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Mr. BRALEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Pipes, you have certainly been a prolific commentator on health care issues. Do you 

hold yourself out at this hearing as a health care policy expert? 

Ms. PIPES. Yes, I am an economist by training. Grew up in Vancouver, went to college there, and was an economist at the Fraser 

Institute in Vancouver, and then came to the U.S. in ’91. 

Mr. BRALEY. One of the things that has been difficult for me to 

do is ascertain the extent of your educational background. Do you 

have any advanced degrees in economics? 

Ms. PIPES. I have an honors degree in economics from the University of British Columbia, and then I joined the Fraser Institute 

working under Dr. Michael Walker and, you know, started out as 

an economatrician. I won the Canadian Crystal Ball award. 

Mr. BRALEY. So the answer to my question would be no, correct? 

Ms. PIPES. No, I have an honors BA in economics but have 

worked in the economic research field for—— 

Mr. BRALEY. And you don’t have a masters or Ph.D. in health 

care policy? 

Ms. PIPES. No, I don’t. 

Mr. BRALEY. Or in public policy as a general concept? 

Ms. PIPES. No, but I have worked in the field. 

Mr. BRALEY. All right, on the Web site for the Pacific Research 

Institute, you are identified in your individual bio as a scholar. Are 

you aware of that? 

Ms. PIPES. Yes, I am a scholar. I write a lot on health care. I 

write books—— 

Mr. BRALEY. Have you published any scholarly treatises in a 

peer-reviewed journal of economics on health care policy? 

Ms. PIPES. Yes. 

Mr. BRALEY. And can you give us some examples? 

Ms. PIPES. I have done some things in ‘‘Health Affairs’’ over the 

past, and in—— 

Mr. BRALEY. But can you just identify the scholarly journal that 

is a peer review journal of that kind? 

Ms. PIPES. Right, well ‘‘Health Affairs’’ is, I think. I don’t know 

whether you would say it is but—— 

Mr. REINHARDT. It is peer reviewed. 

Mr. BRALEY. All right, and do you have a CV or resume that you 

use for your official purposes? 

Ms. PIPES. Well, I use what we have on our Web site. I don’t— 

I mean I have one in my desk from when I got my job in 1991. I 

don’t keep it up to date, but I could—— 

Mr. BRALEY. I mean do you have a listing of your publications, 

a listing of your appearances? Some people do this as a way to—— 

Ms. PIPES. Right, and if you—— 

Mr. BRALEY [continuing]. Let people that they are speaking before know what the content of their background and expertise is. 

Do you have such a listing—— 

Ms. PIPES. Yes, and if—— 

Mr. BRALEY [continuing]. That you could provide to the committee? 

Ms. PIPES. You will see that I write for the ‘‘Wall Street Journal’’ 

and the—— 


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Mr. BRALEY. Just please answer my question. I don’t have much 

time. 

Ms. PIPES. Sure. 

Mr. BRALEY. Could you provide that to the committee? 

Ms. PIPES. Of course, yes. So you can—— 

Mr. BRALEY. OK. Now, one of the things you asked about or you 

raised in the conclusion of your opening remarks was the need for 

medical malpractice reform. Do you remember that? 

Ms. PIPES. Yes. 

Mr. BRALEY. I am sure you are aware that the Institutes of Medicine has done a series of three important studies dealing with the 

issue of preventable medical errors and the cost that they contribute to the overall health care economy of this country. The seminal work was the first work in 2000 ‘‘To Err is Human,’’ and in 

that report, the Institutes of Medicine concluded that ‘‘preventable 

adverse events are a leading cause of death in the United States. 

The results of the study imply that at least 44,000 and perhaps as 

many as 98,000 Americans die in hospitals each year as a result 

of medical errors. Deaths due to preventable adverse events exceeds the death attributable to motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, or AIDS.’’ 

That was then followed by another seminal study ‘‘Patient Safety’’ also from the IOM, and in that study, they included the finding 

that the committee strongly believes that patient safety is indistinguishable from the delivery of quality care. A new delivery system 

must be built to achieve substantial improvement in patient safety. 

A system that is capable of preventing errors from occurring in the 

first place while at the same time incorporating lessons learned 

from any errors that do occur. 

And then we had the important 2006 study from the Institutes 

of Medicine ‘‘Preventing Medication Errors’’ which concluded that 

medication errors are surprisingly common and costly to the nation. The committee concludes there are at least 1.5 million preventable adverse drug events that occur in the United States each 

year. The true number may be much higher. And they issued a 

conservative estimate that these adverse drug events cost our economy, at minimum, $3.5 billion a year. 

So what I am wondering is why when we talk about reforming 

our health care system don’t people who come from your point of 

view come to the committee and talk about constructive ways we 

are going to reduce preventable medical errors, which we all know 

are the most dramatic way that we can reduce the cost of medical 

malpractice in this country? 

Ms. PIPES. Well, I think you should look at some of the work 

done by Dr. Betsy McCoy, who has done work on infectious diseases and shows that more people die in hospitals from infectious 

diseases by a major part compared to medical errors. So I think 

that is important. 

Mr. BRALEY. Well, let us talk about that though because are you 

familiar with the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health 

Care Associations? 

Ms. PIPES. Yes. 

Mr. BRALEY. And are you familiar with their Sentinel Event Program? 


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Ms. PIPES. Right. 

Mr. BRALEY. Do you know that in the first 10 years the Sentinel 

Event Program was in place over a 10-year period, only 3,000 sentinel event reports were filed with JACO, which is astonishing considering the incidents of preventable medical errors that resulted 

in deaths only, not serious injuries, when those numbers would 

suggest that they should have been receiving 44,000 to 98,000 reports at a minimum. So isn’t it clear that the system of accountability that we currently use is completely failing American health 

consumers in making a more safe system? 

Ms. PIPES. Well, I think all doctors are interested in people living 

longer and healthier lives. And, as I say, more people are dying 

from infectious diseases in hospitals than from medical errors. Unfortunately—— 

Mr. BRALEY. Well, I would disagree with that characterization 

because most people would tell you, who study this issue, that one 

of the most preventable forms of an adverse event in a hospital setting is nosocomial infection. And in fact, there has been a lot of research that indicates that, despite overwhelming evidence from 

medical economists, hospitals are reluctant to move to a business 

model that will allow them to reduce the incidents of nosocomial 

infections. So I disagree with your characterization that a 

nosocomial infection is not a preventable medical error. 

Ms. PIPES. No, I—— 

Mr. PALLONE. All right, I am going to let you—— 

Ms. PIPES. I see that you—— 

Mr. PALLONE. Ms. Peeps—Pipes. Sorry. I would like you to respond, and then we have to end because we are over a minute. 

Ms. PIPES. Right. No, I agree with you. We want to get infectious 

diseases in hospitals down because they are a tremendous problem 

and hardship. And on the medical malpractice reform, when they 

capped the noneconomic damage awards in Texas at $250,000, a lot 

of docs who had left, OB/GYNs and neurosurgeons are now coming 

back into Texas because there is an environment there where doctors want to practice medicine. 

We have seen in states like Pennsylvania and Nevada where a 

lot of OB/GYNs and neurosurgeons have left the practice of medicine because the cost of their med now is so expensive that it is 

not profitable for them to practice medicine. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Next is Ms. Baldwin. 

Ms. BALDWIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Professor Reinhardt, I 

enjoyed some of the points made in the end of your written testimony that you weren’t able to make in your more abbreviated oral 

testimony. One of the things that I am interested in is the role— 

well, first your comment. You call it the electronic farmers’ market. 

I think we are used to calling it the exchange or connector. But 

that that entity would have to be empowered with regulatory powers to supervise and enforce the reputability of the products being 

offered. 

We have also had a lot of comments about having the inclusion 

of a public option, and, in fact, Dr. Feder said a public system— 

I think I am quoting accurately—a public system can keep the private system honest. So I would like to hear your take on the interplay between the regulatory powers that are going to be necessary 


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and having a public sector option sort of perhaps substituting for 

that or at least enhancing it. 

Mr. REINHARDT. Well, if you want to have any market, no matter 

what it is, it has to be regulated. And we now find out, to our great 

dismay, that the market-for-credit default swaps also should have 

been regulated. So you need that, and in health care, with the insurance industry, it is still the Wild West in many ways when you 

come to the individual market. That is not true for the employment-based system. 

So you do need to be sure that these policies don’t have fine print 

that ultimately leave you uninsured rather than insured. So you 

need regulation there. 

You then have to make a decision if you want community rating 

or not. If you say we allow medical underwriting, then the subsidies you give people have to be tailored to the health status, 

which is difficult to do. So I think such a body would, by nature 

have to be regulatory, endowed with the power to regulate, or it 

goes back to government. 

Ms. BALDWIN. Dr. Feder, you address as, I think, your fourth 

point that you gave as take-home points that we have to stop discriminating against sick people in coverage. I want to hear your 

take on whether the high-risk pools that have been available as a 

tool to cover sicker populations, have then been a success story, a 

failure, somewhere in between? What is your take on that? 

Ms. FEDER. Congressman Baldwin, my colleague Karen Pollitz, 

will be testifying on the next panel, and I will be drawing insufficiently on her expertise in answering the question. I think highrisk pools are problematic. One, they pull off people from the rest 

of the system, and I think we would be better pooling risk everybody together. 

Second, they have been completely inadequately funded. Charge 

the people who are high risk high rates so that many people who 

are sick can’t get into the high risk pool. 

Third, as I understand it, they impose pre-existing condition exclusions on people who are sick or high risk, which I am laughing 

because that boggles the mind. So it is possibly true that adequately funded with good rules may all come together, and I urge 

you to ask Karen to tell you that. But as it has been treated, it 

is not a substitute for a well-regulated insurance market that everybody gets to choose a plan regardless of health status. 

Ms. PIPES. In some states, the high-risk pools work better than 

in others depending on funding. 

Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the remainder of time. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. 

Murphy. 

Mr. MURPHY OF CONNECTICUT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Pipes, I want to go back to this issue of wait times for 

a moment. I think we spent a little too much time obsessing over 

one system, the Canadian system, given the number of other examples. 

But one of the statistics that is often used is wait times for specific surgeries like hip replacements and knee replacements. And 

there certainly are longer waiting times in Canada for those procedures. For knee replacements, I think it is about three weeks. In 


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Canada—about eight weeks in Canada, about three weeks in the 

United States. 

But what gets lost is that the payer for those surgeries in the 

United States is the government most often. 71, 70 years old is the 

average age for a knee replacement surgery. And in the United 

States, Medicare seems to do a pretty decent job at moving those 

people through the system and getting care at a more expedient 

rate than Canada does. 

And so I guess it is a way of asking this question. You sort of 

in your remarks seemed to suggest that just an inherent flaw of 

a government system is longer wait time. But it seems that our experience with Medicare is that if you put the money behind the 

program, if you make the choice to get people care faster, then a 

public system or a public plan could work just as well as a private 

plan could. 

So do you think that it is inherent in a public versus private dichotomy, or do you think that if you choose to spend the money and 

get the provider network and get the wait times down that you 

could get wait times down in a public plan? 

Ms. PIPES. Well, in Canada, you could reduce the waiting times 

by putting more and more taxpayer dollars into the health care 

system. The problem is that Canadians are taxed at a much higher 

rate than Americans, and the government feels that where they are 

now they are taxed enough. 

And, you know, I did work at the Fraser Institute in my early 

years called Tax Facts where we developed a Canadian consumer 

tax index and compared the levels of tax in Canada versus the 

United States. And work, on average, two months longer because 

we have a lot more government in our lives in Canada. 

So, you know, in the case of my mother who needed a hip replacement, and she was a senior, she waited two years to get a 

knee replacement. And when they replaced it, they replaced it with 

a plastic knee because they said their actuarial records showed 

that at her age she would only live for five years and therefore the 

plastic knee was more efficient and more cost efficient—cost effective. But, you know, she lived eight years longer, and she was in 

severe pain. 

So, you know, this is how Canada, you know, controls costs, and 

people don’t have access to Pap smears on a regular basis or PSA 

tests and things. We have a lot of prevention in this country, but 

these things are more expensive. But we have to decide in this 

country, you know, if you want a lot more government in your 

health care, you are probably going to end up rationing care because as we have seen in Massachusetts, the cost of being a lot 

more than what the original estimates were. 

Mr. MURPHY OF CONNECTICUT. You know I think we both use 

anecdotes on both sides of this debate, but I would say that your 

testimony has been peppered with stories about Canadian health 

care experience. And I am just looking at the data on knee replacement surgeries that just don’t back up that type of timeframe. And 

I do agree with you that it is a matter of choosing to invest in the 

system. I mean no one is talking about a United States health care 

reform proposal ratcheting down the percentage of GDP to what 

Canada spends today. 


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You know, we would love to control costs, but we are not going 

to spend as much as Canada does, and we are going to hopefully 

get a little bit more than they do, which brings me to a question 

for Dr. Reinhardt. 

In your testimony, one of the things you talked about was the 

relative ineffectiveness of the private insurance system to get a 

handle on the cost of care in this country. And that has been a vexing question for me for years. The private sector health care system 

has obviously immediate incentives to bring down the cost of care 

because it increases value for the company for its shareholders and 

doesn’t have the burden that some government systems does of 

having to go through a regulatory process to try to change behavior. And yet we don’t have private insurers investing in simple, 

preventative procedures and costs that could bring down care. 

Why do you think that our private health care insurance system 

in this country isn’t doing as good a job as it could controlling costs 

and investing in prevention? 

Mr. REINHARDT. I think that is an extremely interesting question 

because in the ’80s, a lot of us, myself, thought the HMOs actually 

could do exactly what you said. And there were proposals to make 

Medicare into a defined contribution plan because there was talk 

that an HMO, well-run private plan, could do the same thing Medicare does much cheaper. Sometimes even people said 25 percent. 

So then we gave them 95 percent of the average actuarial per 

capita cost and said that is very generous. They should be able to 

shoot fish in a barrel, given Medicare is so inefficient as everyone 

said. But they couldn’t. As you know, in the ’90s, they all pulled 

out, and the only way they seem to have made it work is to get 

that 14 percent extra. 

I find that very disappointing as an economist that the private 

market that I usually believe in somehow failed us here. Why are 

there not more efficient? Why, for example, given Florida is a lot 

more expensive for Medicare than, say, Iowa would be, why 

wouldn’t HMOs thrive in Florida managing care? I don’t think they 

have proven yet that they can do it. 

I hope some day they can, but so far they have not, and it is a 

very intriguing question why they have not been able to reduce 

costs. And in the early decade, you know, premiums went up 14, 

15 percent, and I always said it is stunning. Medicare has nothing 

like these increases, and yet the private sector came with these increases. 

Mr. PALLONE. We have to move on. 

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. PALLONE. Gentleman from New York, Mr. Weiner. 

Mr. WEINER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think to some degree 

this discussion about public versus private plans I think might be 

too—I mean it is too binary a way to look at it. What does Congress have? I mean it has a private plan, right. But we aggregate 

our many employees. We offer a phone book not dissimilar to the 

size of Mr. Shadegg’s visual aide there of different options, of different prices, of different types of service. What does the panel 

think Congress has in the language of this discussion? 

Ms. FEDER. You can argue that what Congress is an example of 

a connector in the federal employees health benefit plan, and for 


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purposes of disclosure, I am the wife of a federal retiree. So I have 

it too. And we choose, from those of us who have it, from a set of 

private health insurance plans. So what is being talked about is 

talking about adding a public health insurance plan to that menu. 

Mr. WEINER. And, Ms. Pipes, would you too characterize what 

Congress has as a private model in the way you have described it? 

Ms. PIPES. Well, the federal employees health benefit plan, of 

course, is part of the government, but they have private plans within that. And my understanding is that the Blue Cross sort of traditional plan still costs members of Congress about $400 a month because I think the plan is about $1,200 a month. And it—— 

Mr. WEINER. Right, but—forgive me for interrupting. But 

mightn’t there be—I mean, look, I think we have a political imperative, and as we try to work this out is to try to take that large percentage of American citizens who have health insurance that they 

are satisfied with that would like to pay less would keep them invested in this discussion. It is important that they be involved. 

But I also think that this notion that government involvement, 

the moment it touches this, creates a problem. And letting everyone go out and deal with this problem on their own, as Mr. Shadegg and you have suggested, goes too far in the other extreme. 

For example, you know, what if you aggregated a whole bunch 

of businesses that were on their own not able to shop very competitively for health insurance plans, but you as the government, we 

as the government said you know what? We are going to take 

100,000 employees of small businesses in New York City, and we 

are going to go out and we are going to put a book together of different insurance plans who now knowing they are getting 100,000 

customers. 

And we are also going to do a couple of other things. We are 

going to say you can’t exclude people because they have pre-existing conditions. There are certain minimum standards you need to 

have and the like. You are then kind of taking a little bit of the 

private model, a little bit of the public model, a little from column 

A and column B. Would you find that offensive to your notion that 

the government should not be involved in this? 

Ms. PIPES. Well, you know I was a very big support of association 

health plans, which would have allowed, under a lot of smaller 

businesses to group together and then go into the market and negotiate better rates. So I am a big fan of, you know, small business 

needs, you know—— 

Mr. WEINER. So you would be fine with government putting its 

finger on the scale, having standards, having regulations, requiring 

certain coverage and the like, so long as the people writing the 

checks to the doctors were private insurance companies rather than 

government? 

Ms. PIPES. Right, and I think we have seen, you know, New York 

has community rating, guaranteed issue. New York and New Jersey have some of the most expensive insurance plans because of 

those. I would prefer to see some of the mandates and things like 

that removed. 

I mean if you want to get a plan that has community—— 

Mr. WEINER. Yes, I understand that. I just have a moment more. 

Dr. Reinhardt, can I ask you a question that touched on what Mr. 


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Murphy concluded with? Do you think that insurance companies in 

the present model intentionally do things to make money on the 

float? Do you think the reason there are six major insurance companies that have six different forms, for example, is an example of 

them trying to build in inefficiencies that benefit their bottom line 

but make reimbursement slower, make it more difficult for doctors, 

more difficult for patients to navigate? Do you think they are trying to find ways—I mean are they not incentivized by a different 

set of impairments than perhaps Medicaid is? Maybe that is why 

the inefficiencies remain. 

I mean you go into a hospital administrator’s office or a—and you 

sit literally inboxes and outboxes for all the different insurance 

companies because, despite the fact that they are asking for the 

same information, they intentionally keep that inefficiency in the 

system because they make money on it? 

Mr. REINHARDT. Well, I think if interest rates, short-term rates 

were 8, 9 percent, I think you have a point there. In fact, I teach 

a course in financial management, and that was one of my lecture 

notes, how much you could make off the float by just dragging out 

payment. 

But with low interest rates such as we have had, I think it would 

be unprofitable—— 

Mr. WEINER. No, I was thinking more of the structure, the way 

the industry has structured itself to have these inefficiencies, not 

just for the moment. Do you think that is why it evolved to be so 

inefficient and so lumbering very often is because they make 

money on that? When you were giving that class in 2003 or ’04, 

what were you—well, maybe that was too early. 2005, what were 

you saying? 

Mr. REINHARDT. Well, I mean there was definitely—I took a 

health plan in New York and showed that basically they made 

most of their money on the float, which is, of course, not necessarily dishonest. That is part of an insurance industry’s source 

of income is to make money on the float. 

What was questionable is did they deliberately drag out payment 

so that they could make more money on the float? And that is easily fixed by saying if you don’t pay within 30 days, you will pay an 

interest rate. Just like in any trade credit in business, you could 

say you pay within 30 days, that is fine. If you drag it out longer, 

you have to pay the hospital one percent per month you drag it out. 

That would solve the problem, which is, in fact, what my class and 

I concluded could be done. 

Mr. WEINER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Chairman Waxman. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have 

been listening to the discussion. I had to miss some of the earlier 

presentations, but I think this has been an excellent panel. 

Dr. Reinhardt, you have indicated you think that whatever we 

do, employer-sponsored insurance is shrinking, and it will continue 

to shrink. And that this may be a good time for us to develop an 

alternative for people, an alternative based on a reformed individual market, a public insurance program, or both. That has been 

the basis of a lot of the discussion and debate. 


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But I want to ask you what should a health reform bill do to 

make sure that health care coverage is affordable for those who no 

longer have access to employer-sponsored coverage? Should we look 

at the amount of money that people pay out of their income for 

health? Should we try to say that—not just look at the premium 

but all the out-of-pocket costs and then say that people shouldn’t 

have to pay more than 10 percent, 7 percent plus or more of their 

income? 

Mr. REINHARDT. I think, Chairman Waxman, that would be the 

way to go. You have to focus on total health spending, not just premium, and then relate it to the ability of the family to pay for that. 

And that, in some way, is an ethical political decision where you 

put those numbers. If you were to say somebody making less than 

$25,000, what should that percentage be? I personally feel 5 percent would stretch them already. While, as I said earlier, if it were 

someone like me, if you set that at 12 percent, I wouldn’t cheer, 

but I think I could eat it. I could manage that, and it would be fine. 

In the short run, bringing more people under insurance will cost 

money because they are consuming less than half what insured 

people get. So we would have to top it off, and the estimates are— 

some are $120 billion to $150 billion a year if you want really full 

coverage. 

But in the longer run, I do believe we can make health care in 

America a lot cheaper by doing the kind of cost containment candidates from both sides of the aisle had. Senator McCain also had 

ideas about cost containment, but they take longer to do. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Would you put a limit on the out-of-pocket expenses at let us say for low-income people, 5 percent of income? 

Would that make sense given the cost of food, rent, transportation? 

Would you try to figure out some kind of limit for those who have 

insurance and how much they will to pay out of pocket? 

Mr. REINHARDT. I would absolutely try to figure out a limit. Now, 

I am shooting off the hip. I said 5 percent might even stretch people. I always wonder, as someone on the upper strata of the income 

distribution, I wonder how people on $25,000 family income make 

it. You know, I used to be there. I grew up poor, but I forgot. So 

I think it is quite conceivable that 3 percent would stretch them. 

One would really have to budget this out, and that may be a good 

research project for Judy Feder to figure out. That is what you do. 

Ms. FEDER. Why, thank you. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Right, in her spare time. 

Mr. REINHARDT. I mean obviously you can list what families need 

to spend on the basics. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Ms. Pipes, what do you think about that? Do you 

think there ought to be some limit on how much people have to pay 

for their health care? 

Ms. PIPES. Well, you know, we have—people at $25,000 are obviously on Medicaid. And we have now an expanded state children’s 

health insurance plan. So we have a lot of government. I would like 

to see, as I have said, open up the market and, you know, change 

the employer-based system. Allow it to still be there, but if you tax 

the employer benefits and then provide a refundable tax credit for 

those who go—for those people. And also then I think we would see 


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then individual market expand, and we would see new competition, 

new insurers. And we would—— 

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, let us say we don’t get what we want and 

people still, to get adequate insurance coverage for their health 

needs, have to pay so much out of pocket. Should we just assume 

that they just made a deal that didn’t work out for them and let 

it go? 

Ms. PIPES. Well, if you look at Massachusetts, which had the individual employer mandate in their Romney care plan in 2006, I 

mean even after, you know, the Commonwealth Care and the subsidized and free plans, you still saw that 20 percent of the people 

in the first year that should have bought insurance were excluded 

because the premiums were still too expensive. So it is very difficult for me. I don’t know what the ideal number is, but—— 

Mr. WAXMAN. With the few seconds I have, I did want to ask you 

one other question. 

What would you think of the idea—and Mr. Weiner was sort of 

hinting at this—that people go to a connector and buy a private insurance policy, but the connector would be like the federal employees’ benefit package where you have, in effect, a lot of private 

choices that are group plans so you eliminate the discrimination 

and all of that. 

What would you think of that kind of a connector to private 

plans—— 

Ms. PIPES. Well, I would—— 

Mr. WAXMAN [continuing]. Private insurance plans. 

Ms. PIPES. Yes, I would support a connector if it was totally private, but when you have government politicians or government bureaucrats determining, you know, what has to be on the insurance 

plan in the connector, then often I see price going up. And it becomes more difficult. So I would support a totally private connector, 

but I am not in support of a national insurance exchange such as 

President Obama has been talking about because I see the controls 

that would be set by government being—causing—— 

Mr. WAXMAN. So you don’t seen that working? Dr. Feder, if we 

had that ability for people to go a connector and buy a private insurance plan, do you think it could work like the federal employees? And do you think you need a public option to provide some 

tension to keep the private insurance plans affordable and all of 

that? 

Ms. FEDER. I think the combination is ideal. I think what we are 

looking for is we can think of it as a public choice plan. That essentially we create a place, as you say, where people are able to buy 

group insurance without discrimination based on health status. 

But to do that alone without a public health insurance option, we 

have not seen great competition, whether in the federal health employees’ plan or any other. So that having the public health insurance option, as I said earlier, can make the whole market work 

more effectively because we can hold it accountable for delivering 

good benefits, delivering good care, and essentially working to negotiate good rates with providers. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, Chairman Waxman. And I think all of 

our members have asked questions, so I really want to thank you. 


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This was a great panel. It was really thought provoking in terms 

of our efforts to draft legislation and address the whole issue of 

health care reform. So thank you very much. We appreciate it. 

Ms. PIPES. Thank you. 

Ms. FEDER. Thank you. 

Mr. PALLONE. And I would ask the next panel to come forward. 

Thank you all for being here. And let me introduce each of you 

starting on the left, and I hope I get the names right. First, is it 

Mila Kofman? Mila Kofman who is superintendent of insurance for 

the State of Maine Bureau of Insurance. Then we have Dr. Jon 

Kingsdale, who is executive director of the Commonwealth Health 

Insurance Connector Authority. And then we have Karen Pollitz 

who two Ls, not three. Your name tag has three Ls. Karen Pollitz, 

who is research professor at Georgetown University Health Policy 

Institute. And then we have Dr. Katherine Baicker, who is professor of health economics at the Harvard School of Public Health. 

And finally Edmund Haislmaier. 

Mr. HAISLMAIER. Haislmaier. 

Mr. PALLONE. Haislmaier. 

Mr. HAISLMAIER. Thank you. 

Mr. PALLONE. Who is senior research fellow at the Center for 

Health Policy Studies with the Heritage Foundation. Thank you all 

for being here. I know some of you have actually been here since 

the beginning, which is, I am sure, been difficult. 

But in any case, we will have statements from each of you, about 

5 minutes each, starting with Ms. Kofman. 

STATEMENTS OF MILA KOFMAN, J.D., SUPERINTENDENT OF 

INSURANCE, STATE OF MAINE BUREAU OF INSURANCE; JON 

KINGSDALE, PH.D., EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COMMONWEALTH HEALTH INSURANCE CONNECTOR AUTHORITY; 

KAREN POLLITZ, M.P.P., RESEARCH PROFESSOR, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY HEALTH POLICY INSTITUTE; KATHERINE 

BAICKER, PH.D., PROFESSOR OF HEALTH ECONOMICS, HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH; AND EDMUND F. 

HAISLMAIER, B.A., SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW, CENTER 

FOR HEALTH POLICY STUDIES WITH THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION 

STATEMENT OF MILA KOFMAN 

Ms. KOFMAN. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. I thank you and 

the committee for your leadership and willingness to address the 

health care crisis in America. It is both an honor and a privilege 

to be here before you to testify on this matter. I did submit a written statement, and I ask that the full written statement be admitted as part of the record. 

Mr. PALLONE. And that will be the case for each of you. We will 

enter your full written statement in the record. 

Ms. KOFMAN. Thank you. My name is Mila Kofman. I am the superintendent of insurance in Maine. My agency serves and protects 

the public through regulation and oversight of the insurance industry. It is my job to ensure that insurance companies keep their 

promises. My views about reforms and the private market have 

also been informed by my experience as a federal regulator and 


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through my research on private health insurance as an associate 

professor at Georgetown. 

I believe it would be optimal for us to address the health care 

crisis in America in its entirety and for the federal government to 

ensure that all Americans have access to affordable, adequate and 

secure health coverage. 

We live in the wealthiest nation in the world, yet we allow 

18,000 Americans to die preventable deaths each year on our soil, 

not overseas but here. The uninsured problem is estimated to cost 

our economy as much as $130 billion annually. 

Maine has been at the forefront of reforms, developing innovative 

initiatives to help finance medical care. Governor Baldacci has been 

a leader in establishing meaningful new health coverage options for 

individuals and small businesses, coverage that actually works for 

people when they are sick. 

Today I will discuss the types of problems I am not seeing because of the insurance reforms we have in Maine. First, it is important to remember that the private market is not a free market 

where purchasers have meaningful options. A free market assumes 

that everyone who wants to buy a product can choose among sellers 

competing for their business. 

Insurance companies do not compete to insure sick people. Insurance companies do not compete to insure sick people. An insurance 

company’s success depends on its ability to minimize its risk. This 

provides incentives to cherry pick healthy people and limit the 

number of unhealthy. It creates a private market from which many 

Americans are shut out. Even minor conditions like an allergy 

could be the basis for not selling you a policy. 

Also in most states, insurers are allowed to charge higher rates 

for people with medical needs. This includes charging small businesses with sicker workers higher rates than small businesses with 

healthy workers. 

Maine is one of five states, in addition to New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, and Vermont, that prohibits discrimination 

against individuals. We do this through guaranteed issue and adjusted community rating laws. Guarantee issue laws prohibit insurers from turning you down because of your health. Adjusted community rating laws prohibit insurers from charging sicker people 

higher rates. 

In addition to allowing people with medical needs to access private coverage, the combination of guaranteed issue and adjusted 

community rating laws has protected Maine consumers from some 

of the problems experienced by consumers and small businesses in 

other states. 

For example, we do not have rescissions, the problem that Chairman Waxman examined extensively as chairman of the oversight 

committee last year. This is a problem of having your policy retroactively cancelled and being responsible for all the claims paid 

while you had the policy. Rescissions leave people on the hook for 

their medical bills and uninsurable, completely shut out of the private market. 

In Maine, a consumer does not fear losing his or her insurance 

because he or she may have completed the application for insurance incorrectly by mistake. In other states, consumers reported 


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having their policies cancelled retroactively for forgetting to report 

seeing a marriage counselor years before. In Maine, because insurers are not allowed to consider current or past medical needs in the 

first place when selling or pricing a policy, we have not had a problem with rescissions. 

We do have a problem, however, with affordability. The health 

care crisis is like a slow disease slowly killing off the middle class. 

It is a huge burden on employers of all sizes, on workers, and families. Health insurance premiums are expensive because medical 

care is expensive. The private health care financing system has not 

effectively switched its focus and incentives from paying for sick 

care to promoting wellness. The current system rewards inefficiency. Carriers have not been able to negotiate effectively enough 

with providers to keep costs contained. 

Many factors contribute to the price of coverage. That includes 

the cost of medical care, administrative costs, and profits. Since 

2002, our state’s largest insurer has declared nearly $152 million 

in dividends. 

As far as next steps, there is a strong and appropriate role for 

federal policy makers. Americans need and demand meaningful 

health insurance coverage options to access and pay for necessary, 

and in many cases, life-saving medical care and services. Working 

together, the federal government and the states, we can address 

the health care crisis facing our nation’s employers, workers, and 

families. 

I encourage you to build upon the foundation that you established in 1996 through HIPAA, a federal floor of protections, recognizing that states have and should be allowed to create and enforce 

higher levels of consumer protections as their populations need. 

In addition to improving and having strong protections, it is 

equally important to have strong regulators to enforce the law. 

State regulators have a long history of effectively protecting insurance consumers. I encourage you not to duplicate or replace the existing effective state-based insurance oversight system. Thank you, 

and I look forward to assisting you as you move forward in addressing the health crisis. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Kofman follows:] 


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Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Dr. Kingsdale. 

STATEMENT OF JON KINGSDALE 

Mr. KINGSDALE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the 

committee for this opportunity and more importantly for tackling 

this tough subject. I am executive director of the Commonwealth 

Health Insurance Connector Authority, which is one of the principle agencies of health reform in Massachusetts, and I want to 

share with you a couple lessons learned. 

First of all, I would note we do have 97.4 percent of our residents 

covered with insurance. Before I heard that characterized in the 

former panel, I actually thought that was good. It is, by far, the 

highest insurance level in the United States, which sadly is below 

85 percent nationally and declining as we speak. 

Two years ago, after beginning implementation, we reached the 

principle goal of Massachusetts Chapter 58 of the Acts of 2006, 

near universal coverage. As a result, financial barriers to obtaining 

care have fallen markedly. An Urban Institutes survey conducted 

midway through implementation, and I emphasize midway, found 

that Massachusetts rates of deferring needed care, because of financial barriers, were between one-half and one-third of the national average. And I think it is reasonable to assume, as enrollment continued to grow, the financial barriers continued to fall. 

Importantly, Massachusetts has been able to achieve near universal coverage without a surge in medical inflation. In Commonwealth Care, a program run by the Health Connector for lower income adults without access to employer sponsored or other public 

coverages, annual premium increases average under 5 percent, and 

that is better than the national experience, in fact, most private experience in Massachusetts. 

Last week, we actually completed bidding and plan selection for 

the next fiscal year, starting this July, which has produced the following rather extraordinary results: choice of health plans and access to new primary care physicians will increase, and both the 

government spending per enrollee and what our 165,000 enrollees 

contribute monthly will decrease. And I have been in the insurance 

business for 35 years, and I don’t usually use premium and decrease in the same sentence. 

The connector runs actually two distinct programs. So its second 

program, Commonwealth Choice, unsubsidized enrollees enjoy a 

broad array of commercial health plans. They can compare 37 private options that we offer, confident that these plans have received 

the commonwealth seal of approval for quality and value. On the 

day we initiate Commonwealth Choice and the individual mandate, 

July 1, 2007, purchasers of non-group plans experienced a huge 

gain. Their choice of plans increased suddenly. Their average premiums dropped markedly, and shopping for a plan became far easier. 

The result has been a resuscitation of the non-group market in 

Massachusetts. Prior to reform, non-group enrollment had been 

falling and premiums rising. A year later, the number of Massachusetts residents buying insurance directly on their own had doubled, and the premiums for standard coverage in the largest nongroup plans had declined by 25 percent. 


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Although we only offer 37 of the 180 options now available to individuals in Massachusetts and they are priced the same in the 

connector or if purchased outside the connector, our growth has accounted for 50 percent of the growth in non-group coverage in Massachusetts. 

Health care reform in the state is a shared responsibility. Onethird of the some 440,000 newly insured residents in the commonwealth are in employer-sponsored plans. Near universal coverage is 

the product of shared responsibility among employers, taxpayers, 

and those directly involved in providing and reimbursing care. Our 

governor and legislative leaders are committed to maintaining coverage and sustaining access. 

Now, let me just say a couple things about the two connector programs that I briefly described. The Connector organizes a market 

to provide meaningful choice. Like any retailer, we ask our customers what they want. What they tell us is they want quality, 

meaning insurance options they can trust, they want value, meaning that we compare and showcase those plans which offer the best 

benefits for prices charged, and they want to be able to compare 

and shop online as opposed to calling each carrier, asking a bunch 

of questions, being put on hold, and then trying to compare notes 

at the end of the day. 

In both Commonwealth Care and Choice, we set standards for 

covered benefits. We rigorous evaluate the products before offering 

them, and we organize the choice of plans so that members can 

readily compare them. At enrollment and afterwards, we work with 

members and health plans to resolve member issues. 

With Commonwealth Care, since we are spending public monies 

for coverage, the Connector specifies a set of benefits and conducts 

a highly competitive bidding process. But enrollees choose the plan. 

They choose the provider network, and if they choose a more expensive plan and they earn above 100 percent of FPL, they pay the 

additional cost. 

With Commonwealth Choice, which is the unsubsidized plan, our 

members are making a major buying decision. They are spending 

somewhere between $1,500 and $15,000 a year on insurance, depending on family size, age, zip code, et cetera, and the plan they 

choose. The Connector sets four very different levels of benefits 

from which customers can choose and offers at least six different 

carriers on each of these benefit tiers. Our customers can shop by 

entering three pieces of information: age, household size, and zip 

code. 

We do offer customer telephone service, but 80 percent of the 

buying is online, typically in 20 to 30 minutes, spend somewhere 

between $1,500 and $15,000 a year. And whichever plan they buy, 

enrollment is guaranteed as is the next year’s renewal regardless 

of any change in members’ medical condition. 

And believe it or not, after spending all that money, our members consistently thank you, even though we all know this is outrageously expensive. Frankly this is—and I have been in the insurance business for over 30 years—the most consumer friendly, consumer-driven offering that I have encountered. Thank you for your 

time and interest, and I will be happy to do my best to answer 

questions. 


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[The prepared statement of Mr. Kingsdale follows:] 


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Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Ms. Pollitz with two Ls, not three. 

STATEMENT OF KAREN POLLITZ 

Ms. POLLITZ. Like Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee. Health reform presents you with an opportunity to provide for more health insurance markets through a 

connector, as Dr. Kingsdale discussed, or an exchange. You can organize markets around explicit outcomes that you want to achieve 

from health insurance. 

I would like to briefly review five key goals. The first is to promote risk spreading and stability in health insurance. We have already talked today about how a small minority of people accounts 

for most health care spending, and this creates an overwhelming 

financial incentive for insurance companies to avoid risk. So we 

need rules to make that stop. 

I have testified before about medical underwriting practices that 

make it harder for consumers to get coverage, but other marketing 

practices make it difficult for consumers to keep affordable coverage. Age rating raises your premium steadily, and when you 

reach your 50s and 60s, when the incidents of most health conditions starts to increase, health insurance becomes very 

unaffordable. 

Carriers also use durational ratings to actually apply a surcharge 

to premiums based on how long you have held your policy. The idea 

is to encourage people who can still pass underwriting to not 

renew, but to go out and buy a new policy, go through underwriting 

again to get a good rate. But the people who can’t do that get 

stranded in policies and see their premiums spiral. 

Health reform can help by changing the rules of health insurance 

marketplaces, require guarantee issue, community rating, no preex, so that we stop competition on the basis of risk avoidance. 

The second goal must be to assure adequate coverage. Today we 

have 57 million Americans struggling with medical debt, and threequarters of them are insured. Some are underinsured because their 

policy doesn’t cover key benefits, but increasingly the problem lies 

with high deductibles and high cost sharing. 

We have accepted higher cost sharing year after year in an effort 

to try to hold premiums down, but as soon as we get sick, we realize what a failed strategy this is. Especially for patients with 

chronic conditions, high deductibles hit relentlessly year after year. 

Even modest copays will mount quickly, and as a result, people 

have difficulty affording basic care management for chronic conditions like asthma and diabetes. And as a result, avoidable and expensive medical complications arise. 

In short, underinsurance is becoming a threat to the public 

health. It also drives up bad debt and collections costs for doctors 

and hospitals. The industry experts tell us that the collections rate 

for low deductible plans is about 87 percent, but for high deductible 

plans is only 43 percent. So it adds to that administrative cost and 

hassle for providers as well. 

Reform can help by setting comprehensive standards for what 

health insurance covers and make sure that in the marketplace 

only good choices are available. 


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A third choice is to assure affordability. In the interest of time, 

I won’t belabor this point. I think the other panel talked very convincingly about the need for subsidies for both premiums and for 

cost sharing to make health care and health coverage affordable. 

The fourth goal is cost containment. Most private health insurance markets today are dominated by a few, large carriers, and yet 

these dominant carriers have not used their market clout to control 

costs. Instead, they have passed out health care costs to consumers 

while increasing profitability at the same time. Reform can help by 

organizing health insurance markets to generate new forms of competition and more effective cost containment strategies. 

You have a number of options to consider. As is the case in Massachusetts, the exchange can have the option of not including all 

carriers as participants but instead selecting those that are the 

most effective and the most efficient. As also was discussed earlier 

at great length, a public health insurance plan option can and 

should be offered to heighten competition. 

And finally, Mr. Chairman, transparency and accountability are 

critical to a well-functioning health insurance market. Mr. Deal 

spoke earlier this morning about price transparency and the importance of that, and I completely agree. But we need transparency 

throughout our health insurance system and market. Health insurance policies themselves need to be transparent and understandable. Policies are so complex today they leave most consumers confused and frustrated. A recent industry survey found that most 

people would prefer to do anything, including working on their 

taxes, rather than trying to read through their insurance policy to 

figure out what it covers. 

And we need transparency of market behavior as well. Too many 

market practices are hidden from view. It is very difficult to track 

who is enrolled, who is disenrolling, when claims are paid, when 

they are pended, when they are denied. These questions are important, and they are answerable if only we will insist on the data. 

In an organized insurance market we can do that. In the past 

few months, as financial markets in the economy have struggled, 

how many times have you heard or you yourselves made the call 

for greater transparency and accountability? These themes must 

allow apply to health insurance and guide your efforts on health 

care reform. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Pollitz follows:] 


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Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Dr. Baicker. 

STATEMENT OF KATHERINE BAICKER 

Ms. BAICKER. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be 

here. I would like to draw a couple of key distinctions at the beginning. First, health is very different from health care, and second 

health care is very different from health insurance. I know we have 

all hit on these points already, so I will be brief. But we know 

many things affect health outcomes besides the health care system. 

By the time someone shows up at the hospital in critical condition, it is already too late in some senses. That means that comprehensive reform should address investment in all sorts of things 

that promote health including health behaviors, access to nutritious foods, exercise, et cetera. It also makes international comparisons of health systems particularly different because when we look 

at the value our health care system is producing, the health outcomes are the product not just of that health care system but of 

all those other factors that may be different across countries as 

well. 

The second distinction I wanted to draw was between health care 

and health insurance, and that sounds obvious, but it is often 

conflated in the debate. And this goes to the point that Representative Christensen raised earlier about what our responsibility and 

what our goals should be for helping sick people who are uninsured. 

People need health insurance because health care is uncertain 

because the risks are uncertain, not because health care is expensive. There are lots of things that are expensive that we might 

want to redistribute resources for to low-income people but not 

through the form of insurance because those expenses aren’t so 

variable, so unknown. Whereas health insurance exists to protect 

people against the risk of needing a lot of resources to pay for an 

expensive health care condition when those resources could save 

their life. 

So what do uninsured sick people need? They need health care, 

but they don’t necessarily need health insurance. And we might 

want to design a reform to help those people that gets them access 

to care that doesn’t necessarily build on an insurance system designed to help the majority of people who get insured when they 

are healthy, some of whom then fall sick and some of whom don’t. 

The problem that sick people who are insured have is one of insuring the affordability of that care going forward. People want 

protection not just against high expenses today, but against the 

risk of high expenses next year. And that means having an insurance policy that you can count on if you or a family member get 

sick. Your premiums shouldn’t go up. You shouldn’t lose your insurance. You have done what you needed to do to get insurance 

when you were healthy. We need to ensure that that insurance 

stays around to protect people should they fall ill. 

A second principle I would like to bring up is the idea that covering the uninsured doesn’t pay for itself. It would be wonderful if 

we could recoup the investment that we make in covering the uninsured through less spending on emergency departments and ineffiVerDate Mar 15 2010 23:52 Mar 23, 2012 Jkt 067813 PO 00000 Frm 00122 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A813.XXX A813

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cient care that we know the insured differently from the uninsured 

right now. 

Unfortunately, I don’t think we can count on saving money by 

covering the uninsured, but that doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be 

money extremely well spent. If we invest money in covering the uninsured, they will gain enormous health benefits from it. So the 

money is worthwhile, but it is not free. And it doesn’t save money 

on net to extend insurance coverage because we know the uninsured are consuming too little health care today. So extending coverage to them would give them access to more care that would cost 

more money. So we need to design reforms that can pay for that. 

A corollary to that idea is that preventive care doesn’t pay for 

itself by and large either. There are a few exceptions. Flu shots for 

toddlers more than pay for themselves. Most preventive care again 

is a good investment in health. It promotes health in the long run, 

and it is worth spending money on, but it doesn’t reduce costs. 

Most preventive care buys quality adjusted life years at a pretty 

good price, and we should invest in that. Some preventive care is 

very expensive for the health that we buy and is in fact less cost 

effective than care that wouldn’t be characterized as preventive. So 

we shouldn’t think of preventive care as a uniform cure-all either. 

It is a mix of highly cost effective and highly non-cost effective care 

as well. 

Another principle that I would like to bring to the debate is that 

insurance alone doesn’t guarantee access to high quality care. We 

hit on that, the questions discussed that a fair amount in the first 

panel, so I won’t spend a lot of time on it here. But there is ample 

evidence, largely derived from the Dartmouth data on variations in 

health care within Medicaid, that high spending on health doesn’t 

guarantee high-quality care. And even people in the same insurance program, Medicare fee-for-service, get wildly different health 

care benefits in different parts of the country. 

Next I would like to raise the idea that employees bear the burden of employer-provided health insurance. This means that if we 

want to foster the employer system, if we want to put employerbased policies on a level playing field with non-group markets, the 

reasons to think about doing that involve risk pooling and economies of scale in large purchasing, not the idea that employers 

somehow bear the burden of health costs through profits. 

In the long run, when health care costs go up for employer provided plans, employees bear that cost in the form of lower wages. 

That is part of the reason we have seen slower wage growth over 

the last decade. It is because an increasing share of compensation 

that workers get has come in the form of health insurance rather 

than wages. In some cases, when wages can’t accommodate that increase in health care costs, that results in unemployment. So ultimately workers bear the burden either through lower wages or in 

some cases through losing their jobs. 

The last point that I would like to make is that high deductible 

health plans can introduce cost sharing that promotes efficiency, 

but they aren’t the magic bullet. There is no reason to think that 

the high deductible health policies that we see today are the perfect structure. What I think the tax system should aim to do is promote innovative insurance coverage that fosters high value care. 


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That might mean higher deductible for some kinds of care and subsidizing other kinds of care. Maybe we should pay people to go get 

flu shots because those are particularly cost effective. It should 

have a negative copayment associated with it. 

Any reform design should promote that kind of high value insurance structure that I think is unlikely to be generated by a monolithic single public payer plan but is unlikely to be generated by 

a prescribed particular form of deductible. 

So in conclusion, I think we should address the issues of coverage 

and cost together, not because they are equally important necessarily, although I think both are very important, but because 

each goal is more likely achieved when the two are considered together. It is very difficult to design a system to cover the uninsured 

that we can afford tomorrow if we don’t take health care costs into 

account. And if we don’t get costs under control, more people will 

find themselves falling into that uninsured bucket as their employer provided plan or the non-group market plans become less 

and less affordable. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Baicker follows:] 


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Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, Doctor. Mr. Haislmaier. 

STATEMENT OF EDMUND F. HAISLMAIER 

Mr. HAISLMAIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the 

committee for inviting me here today to testify. I have submitted 

prepared remarks which I will summarize briefly. Let me just 

make a couple of points, and I would particularly like to follow on 

what Dr. Baicker just said about silver bullets. 

In 20 years of doing health care policy, it has been my observation that too often too many of us, regardless of where we are on 

the political spectrum, are tempted to try to latch onto something 

as a small silver bullet solution to health care. I have come to the 

conclusion that while each and every one of those things has some 

value, none of them are a magic silver bullet to fix the problem. 

Rather you have to take them in a context, and you have to look 

at them as pieces of the puzzle. 

We also have a tendency to run towards fads. That is the silver 

bullet, if you will, that is most popular at the given moment. Again 

this can be on either side of the aisle. We have seen it with HMOs, 

HSAs, public plan, this, that, and the other. Again I would encourage you to refrain from that. 

In looking at the situation we have today, what strikes me, not 

only based on my experience over 20 years, but actually based on 

the last five years of working with about 18 different states. Literally I was in the period of seven days testifying in Anchorage and 

Tallahassee. So it is across the country, in very different circumstances. How diverse the situation in on the ground in your different states and also how much more amendable it is to solution 

at the state level. 

I have also at a policy then intrigued by the few things that are 

really needed in my view to make measurable progress, and let me 

summarize them as I do in my testimony. I think the Massachusetts Connector, which is the first example, and now Utah—unfortunately Representative Matheson isn’t here—last week enacted 

something very similar—is the first couple of examples of what I 

think needs to be done in one area, which is to create an individualized solution for employers and their workers. 

This is not the same as the traditional individual insurance market, as Mr. Kingsdale points out. This functions just like an employer market. You are guaranteed the coverage. You have a right 

to pick an open season. In fact, it works like FEHBP, which was 

discussed earlier. 

In fact, they are doing the things you would have to do if you 

were to say we are going to take FEHBP and instead of having it 

be one employer, the federal government, we are going to have a 

state do it for any employer in the state to participate in. That is 

what the unsubsidized Commonwealth Connector reforms that they 

are rolling out right now are designed to do and what other states 

are looking at doing. Any state can do that today, and we have 

shown them how they can do it working as Massachusetts and now 

Utah are doing within federal law. 

Point two is if you want to apply guaranteed issue to the individual market, that can be done. It can be done at the state level. 

Some states have done it, as Ms. Kofman pointed out. It could be 


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required at the federal level. The important thing is to do it right. 

It should not be an unlimited pick-it-up-drop-it-anytime-you-want 

kind of guaranteed issue, but rather as the federal government set 

forth in HIPAA, a set of standards for guaranteed issue in the 

group market for individuals when it is reasonable for people to do 

that. 

The other two points in my testimony are that the way to make 

those reforms work in an optimal fashion is to support them with 

risk adjustment mechanisms. And I noted in my testimony that in 

my discussions with folks in Massachusetts and in my observations, I think if I was to go back and say what did they leave out 

that they should have included. And that was they didn’t include 

a risk-adjustment mechanism for making sure that nobody was disadvantaged as an insurer getting more of the sick cases than somebody else. 

Interestingly enough, learning from that lesson, that is the first 

order of business in the Utah reforms is to set that piece of it up. 

And then finally if you are going to move to guaranteed issue in 

the individual market, and you are going to give people the right 

to buy coverage, then for that to work economically and socially, 

people have to take of the obligation to take advantage of that right 

when they are healthy and pay into the system and not simply 

avoid it until they need it and then want to take out of the system. 

Finally what strikes me about all of this is that any of this stuff 

and all of this stuff can be done by states now. It is not necessary 

for the federal government to do it for them. The federal government, however, could do things to aid and encourage them. And I 

will be happy to discuss that later. 

And then finally to Representative Deal’s question, again I think 

price and transparency is essential to making this work even better 

down the road. But again I think this is something, given that 

states regulate insurance and the practice of medicine, that states 

are looking at doing themselves to one degree or another and is 

certainly something I would encourage there to support it. Thank 

you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Haislmaier follows:] 


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Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, and I want to thank all the panelists. 

We are going to have questions now. Each member gets 5 minutes, 

as you probably know, and I will start out with myself. And I wanted to ask Mr. Kingsdale. You have achieved remarkable results in 

Massachusetts with your two connectors. Our national rate of 

uninsurance is 17 percent. In Massachusetts, just 2.6 percent are 

uninsured. But to achieve this result, you have in place a requirement that all residents must have health insurance coverage that 

meets minimum standards for adequacy, and I just want to ask a 

few questions about this individual mandate and how you ensure 

that the coverage people are required to buy is affordable. 

I have four questions. I am going to try to go quickly here. What 

type of coverage does Massachusetts require its residents to have, 

and how is that individual mandate enforced? Of course, I heard 

about this during the presidential campaign, but I want your opinion. 

Mr. KINGSDALE. Thanks for the question. If you require insurance or anything, you have to set a minimum standard. Obviously 

a dollar of coverage per year does not constitute real insurance. 

And that has been one of the two thorniest problems, which the 

legislature in its wisdom as the board of the connector to resolve 

rather than to do in legislation. 

And we have used a couple principles to develop what I would 

call minimum credible coverage. One is that, like any insurance, it 

ought to protect people from catastrophic costs so there are some 

maximum cost sharing elements to it. And the second is that because this is health care, which does differ in some important respects from other kinds of insurance, we actually require coverage 

up front of preventive care before a deductible and coverage with 

or without a deductible of a broad array of services, such as you 

would expect from coverage in your own health plan. 

Mr. PALLONE. And how about the enforcement of the individual 

mandates? How do you do that? 

Mr. KINGSDALE. The enforcement is through the tax code. The 

enforcement has been on the principle that it is good to have insurance and we want to help you get there, not got you. So the actual 

requirement went into effect July 1 of 2007. As long as you had insurance by December 31 of 2007, you did not pay a penalty. And 

if you did not have it, the penalty was pretty modest, $219. That 

penalty goes up and becomes month by month as we move into 

2008 and 2009. 

We have exceptions for religious beliefs, a much bigger exception 

for affordability. Of course, we have significant subsidies to low-income people who are not eligible for employer-sponsored insurance 

to help them afford it. And then we have a robust and generous 

appeals process for individual cases. So we bend over backwards to 

try to get you there rather than penalize you for it. 

Mr. PALLONE. Let me see if I can get to these other three questions. How did the state decide what combination of premiums, 

deductibles, coinsurance, other out-of-pocket payments were affordable for individual and families? 

Mr. KINGSDALE. That is the other very tricky question. Again the 

legislature asked the connector board to do that. And we kind of 

did a bookends approach. So at the bottom of the income scale, zero 


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is affordable. And we defined that as 150 percent of federal poverty 

level. That is a fairly arbitrary decision but a gut check. And at 

median income—and ours is a wealthy state, so that’s about 550 

percent of federal poverty—we said you have to have insurance. 

There is no exception for affordability. 

And in between, we basically do a scaled progressive schedule, 

but the principle underlying that is that by the time you get to 200 

to 300 percent of federal poverty, so that would be an individual 

making $21,000 to $32,000 a year, where 80 percent of our citizens 

who get their insurance through employer-sponsored insurance, 

pay something like about $100 on average per individual per 

month toward that. We thought that was a reasonable affordability 

basis. It had political equity. It would reduce or avoid crowd-out, 

and it seemed sort of gut check fair. 

Mr. PALLONE. Now what about, have any studies been done to 

determine if rates of medical debts or bankruptcy have declined 

since Massachusetts achieved this near universal coverage? 

Mr. KINGSDALE. That is a great question. I actually have asked 

several times to have such a study done. It is on somebody’s project 

list, and I keep looking for outside research to do it. I am hopeful 

that the answer would be medical bankruptcies would go way down 

if you compare ’08 to ’06, but we have not done the study. 

Mr. PALLONE. Let me just ask Ms. Pollitz, this issue again with 

the individual bankruptcy or debt. There was a study published by 

the Senate for Studying Health Systems Change that showed that 

75 percent of those with medical debt in 2007 were actually insured. They had health care coverage, but they still had debt. Can 

you explain that? I mean this whole issue of people who actually 

have coverage going bankrupt or going seriously into debt. 

Ms. POLLITZ. It can be a number of different factors. It could be 

that their policy doesn’t cover all of the services that they need. 

May not have a prescription drug benefit, for example. If you have 

HIV and you don’t have a prescription drug benefit or MS or something that has very expensive pharmaceutical need, then you could 

run up very high medical bills because those services aren’t covered 

by your insurance. 

There may be caps on what is covered. You see policies that, you 

know, only pay so many mental health visits a year, and then, you 

know, a kid gets an eating disorder. Or a policy that, you know, 

caps total benefits at $10,000 a year, and then you have a heart 

attack that costs $100,000. So that can happen. 

Typically the literature on medical bankruptcy suggests though 

that it is not six-figure medical debt that is sinking families. On 

average, it is less than $12,000 or $15,000 in medical debt that will 

run a family over the limit and leave them to declare bankruptcy. 

And so we need to also look at cost sharing, and cost sharing that 

we might think of even as modest. 

One study that I cited in my testimony looked at medical copays 

in the range of $6 to $25, and what those meant for people with 

chronic conditions, asthma and diabetes and so forth. If you are 

needing to, you know, take medication several times a day every 

day for your entire life and you are always refilling these prescriptions, those little copays add up and become thousands of dollars. 


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And if you add on to that, deductibles, copays for other medical 

care that you need, it really adds up remarkably quickly. 

Mr. PALLONE. OK, thank you. Mr. Deal. 

Mr. DEAL. Thank you. I want to get my transparency question 

out of the way real quickly. I think most of you were in the audience and heard my description of the proposed legislation. And I 

will just go down the list. Do you generally believe that pricing 

transparency is something that we need to enhance in our system 

regardless of what that system may ultimately turn out to be? Ms. 

Kofman, start with you, and we will go down. 

Ms. KOFMAN. Thank you. I think it is critical when you have a 

private market to have transparency to provide consumers with 

useful information they can understand and use in making decisions. Right now, if you were shopping around, you couldn’t get 

your policy ahead of time, the full contract. You can get a benefits 

description which may or may not be accurate. 

So transparency in my view includes everything, from how your 

contract, how your insurance will work when you need it, to choosing your provider and to making more informed choices from start 

to finish. Right now, that just does not exist in the private market. 

Mr. DEAL. Dr. Kingsdale. 

Mr. KINGSDALE. I would strongly endorse the idea of making 

prices and benefits and everything else transparent. In fact, in our 

programs, that is exactly what we do. I have been in the insurance 

business for over 25 years before becoming a bureaucrat. And so I 

am pretty realistic about how much is achievable. Price is absolutely—and other information—requisite to a functioning market, 

but so is competition. 

In Ms. Kofman’s state and in most towns in my state, you don’t 

have but one hospital, period. So you can know all you want about 

their prices. You really don’t have a choice, and so it doesn’t do you 

much good. So I am realistic about what you can do with it. 

Mr. DEAL. But even in those situations where there is one hospital, who you are and who is paying the bill will determine what 

the price from that one hospital is because you have negotiated 

prices by government agencies. You have negotiated prices by private insurers, and generally, the ones that wind up in the bankruptcy court are the ones that don’t have anything, and they are 

generally charged the highest price of all. Ms. Pollitz. 

Ms. POLLITZ. I agree it is very important, and I commend you for 

your legislation. And I would just agree also that looking at all of 

the dimensions where transparency is necessary is important to do, 

and I hope that will be part of this effort as well. 

Mr. DEAL. Thank you. Dr. Baicker. 

Ms. BAICKER. Agreed. Transparency is a prerequisite for a wellfunctioning market, and the prices that we could publish now 

would be very useful. And even more useful would be building together bundles of prices that would really let people choose how 

much does it cost to have this condition taken care of by this group, 

not line by line. It is harder for them to aggregate, but you have 

to start with what is available. 

Mr. DEAL. Mr. Haislmaier. 

Mr. HAISLMAIER. Yes, Congressman, as I mentioned in my remarks, I do agree with you on that. I would simply, as I mentioned 


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in my remarks, encourage everyone to recognize that this is one 

very important piece of the puzzle, but it is not the only thing. 

To follow up on what Mr. Kingsdale was saying, the first question is what does it cost. The next question is what am I getting 

for my money. And that is where you start comparing the data on 

quality and outcome. So you always have to ask that first question 

before the second question gets asked. That is true. 

There are ways where you can do that not only in insurance but 

also in the provider side, which is really important. And I would 

also encourage folks to think not about the consumer versus the 

provider interaction but creating a common data set that all the insurers can use to act as the agents, as the experts, on behalf of the 

consumers in these decisions. And so a number of states are looking to do that. 

And I think the regrettable thing about it, if Massachusetts’s 

mistake in the beginning was not to have a risk adjustor, their 

mistake in implementation was that the governor and this administration recently cut back the cost and quality commission that 

was designed to do that in the legislation. 

Mr. DEAL. Could I follow up with less than three-quarters of a 

minute? Would you contrast the Utah situation with the Massachusetts? What improvements do you think they made that were important? What other changes, if any, would you suggest the state 

look into? 

Mr. HAISLMAIER. Well, I think the most striking thing about 

this—and you all as members of Congress will probably think of 

the very different politics of those states—but I would encourage 

you to realize that the most striking thing to me about this is when 

you rank the 50 states by the per capita cost of health care, Massachusetts is the single most expensive, and Utah is the absolutely 

cheapest. So those are vastly different in their health care systems. 

That said, Massachusetts had a large amount of money that it 

was giving to hospitals, public dollars, to pay for the uninsured, 

which is now being converted into buying those people insurance. 

Utah is on the other end. They have almost no public money going 

to insurance. So what they are doing is, while Massachusetts focused on expanding coverage by subsidizing low-income individuals 

with the dollars they already had and is only now rolling out the 

reforms to allow employers and unsubsidized workers to have a 

choice of coverage. 

Utah is going about it the opposite way. They are starting in the 

private market and then working towards the public side. That is 

my point is states are very different. Each can use the same things, 

but they have to find their own way and their own order for doing 

it that suits them. 

Mr. DEAL. Thank you. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, Mr. Deal. Mr. Gonzalez. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I apologize 

to the witnesses. There are so many conflicting appointments today 

and another hearing of the judiciary. So I missed the testimony of 

the witnesses, except for the first witness, and I apologize. I may 

go over something that you all covered, and again do understand 

though that you have written statements in here. We have memos 

that are prepared by staff. We are going to have many hearings. 


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Much of what you say here today, if not listened by individual 

members of the committee, believe me, these statements will be reviewed and may well serve as the basis for some of the memos in 

the future as we take on different panels. 

I will start with pronunciation. Is it Dr. Baicker? How would you 

pronounce that? 

Ms. BAICKER. Baicker. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Baicker, OK. 

Ms. BAICKER. Just spelled funny. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. No, it is spelled in a very interesting way. But 

you were here for the witnesses statements by the previous panel, 

were you not? 

Ms. BAICKER. Yes. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. OK, and in your own statement, and I couldn’t 

agree with you more, and I am sure everyone that is here—in your 

statement, you indicate while there are many open questions in the 

design of the ideal system, with millions uninsured and rising costs 

threatening to swamp public and private budgets alike, we cannot 

afford to wait to act. 

Obviously this committee is going to move forward. This administration is going to move forward, but I think you highlight the biggest obstacle. And that is something I referred to earlier when I 

was quoting from the two authors from the ‘‘Harvard Business Review’’ in the article No Doubt, but we still face the same problem. 

How one balances these tradeoffs is likely driven as much by philosophy as economics. And any reform will involve tough choices 

between competing values, and I think that is the biggest problem. 

If we can just stick on the economics, the efficiency of what we do, 

we are well served. But you have already heard words like socialism, the Big Brother, and such. We need to get past that. 

So the question is do we move forward now? And we do so, we 

are not talking about a single payer. Is that correct? Now, there 

are many here that would like that, but I am just saying is it is 

going to be a public option. That is the way I like to think of it. 

And as we move forward again, leaving back ideologies, we have 

always said that we probably could form the most efficient system 

if the employer, which is the greatest purchaser of insurance, could 

lead that fight. That is what I had in the ‘‘Harvard Review’’ article, 

but that hasn’t transpired in the past few years. 

So employers haven’t been able to identify a better system. The 

consumer is ill equipped. Ms. Pollitz, thank you very much for your 

comment. It was very sad in that ‘‘Time’’ article about someone 

from San Antonio who had an insurance policy that was totally 

worthless when his kidneys failed. So you can’t say that the consumer is equipped to deal with this. The health care providers 

aren’t doing it, not the medical professions. As a matter of fact, we 

have the specialties that compete with one another depending on 

what is going to be covered and when and how much. 

So wouldn’t it be appropriate for the federal government—and I 

know someone has suggested let every state do it individually. But 

what are your views today about where we are going and what we 

are going to be proposing as far as the federal government coming 

in and playing a major role? Yes, Dr. Baicker. 


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Ms. BAICKER. Thank you for the question. I think you have hit 

on so many important issues. One of the things I would like to pick 

up on is that there are things that we cannot expect a private market to do. Private markets are great at pooling risks, and there are 

regulatory requirements to ensure that they do so fairly and effectively. But we can’t expect private markets to redistribute money 

from rich to poor or from people with low health risks, the healthy, 

to people with high health risks, the sick. That kind of redistribution of resources is fundamentally social insurance not private insurance. Social insurance need not be socialized. It could be done 

through the form of risk-adjusted vouchers where people with high 

health risks take extra money that they are given. Maybe particularly low income people get more generous risk-adjusted vouchers 

to ensure that they have access to the care that they need. 

That kind of redistribution happens a little bit now because of 

the way that we subsidize employer-provided health insurance. The 

way that we subsidize it encourages some risk-pooling in the employer market by encouraging high-risk people and low-risk people 

to stay in the same pool, whereas otherwise low-risk people might 

flee. 

Now, is that the most efficient way to do that kind of subsidization of high-risk people? There are probably other ways that we 

could accomplish that goal that might have better distributional 

implications while preserving what is good about the risk pooling 

that is occurring right now. 

Any reform going forward that is going to take care of our most 

vulnerable citizens is going to have a component of social insurance, and that is the way we should be thinking about that function, not trying to impose that on private markets that are ill 

equipped to do redistribution. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you very much. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Dr. Burgess. 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Baicker, if we could 

just continue on that line for a moment. One of the things that was 

talked about in the fall campaign was using the best practices of 

the states that had high-risk pools and trying to construct or constructing rather a mechanism for dealing with individuals who had 

conditions of medical fragility that would apply to their unique situation without changing the landscape for everyone else. Is that 

still a realistic possibility in the environment that we find ourselves today, taking the best practices from the states that have 

high-risk pools? 

Ms. BAICKER. I think we certainly want to learn from the diversity of state experiences, and some states have high-risk pools that 

are functioning much better than others. And there are some general principles we can draw from that, more broadly subsidizing 

the high-risk pools rather than trying to subsidize them from narrow tax bases, for example, seems to be a more productive way of 

subsidizing them. Again that is falling under the role of social insurance where you are explicitly trying to redistribute some money 

to high-risk people who are otherwise uninsured. 

I would think the first goal of a reform would be to get people 

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vest in their health so they get the most efficient they can. And a 

system that is designed to minimize the number of people in that 

condition in the first place could spread dollars a lot further. Then 

I think it would be great to learn from best practices at the state 

level to deal with people who fall through the cracks and to ensure 

that there is a broad enough subsidization that it doesn’t drive a 

cycle that leads to more health people being uninsured for example. 

Mr. BURGESS. All right, thank you. Dr. Kingsdale, on the Massachusetts experience, do you have a figure on the number of people 

who are paying the fine rather than buying the insurance? 

Mr. KINGSDALE. We have a lagging indicator because you file in 

April, of course, for the year before, and some people get extensions. So we have it only for 2007, and that was about 100,000 people—— 

Mr. BURGESS. And so you will—— 

Mr. KINGSDALE [continuing]. About 1.5 percent of our population. 

Mr. BURGESS. And then you will have comparable data that you 

will generate this—in your file period, April 15, like the federal income tax? 

Mr. KINGSDALE. Right, although 10 percent extend until October, 

but we will have pretty good data. 

Mr. BURGESS. Yes, I do that too. 

Mr. KINGSDALE. Got to try that. 

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Haislmaier, if I could ask you on the—you 

pointed out that a lot of things are being done by the states now, 

that they have a great deal of flexibility. In fact, I think we gave 

them a great deal of flexibility in the Deficit Reduction Act in 2005. 

Ezekiel Emmanuel writing with John Lyndon in the ‘‘Journal of 

American Medical Association’’ in October of this past year alluded 

to that and said the one thing the states cannot do is to alter the 

federal tax code, that it is not within their power to do that. So 

could you speak to that? 

Mr. HAISLMAIER. Sure. 

Mr. BURGESS. We heard a lot about taxing health benefits during 

the fall campaign. It appeared to me at the time to be something 

that was disfavored by the parties that won, but now it seems to 

be coming back in vogue. And I wonder if you might just address 

that. 

Mr. HAISLMAIER. Well, I think it all depends on what you do with 

the money once you have taxed them. Most of the proposals I am 

familiar with, and I worked on about eight different ones over the 

years from everybody from Mr. Army to Mr. McDermott on changing the tax treatment in Congress, would redistribute the money 

in the form of new tax credits to address some of the equity issues 

that were addressed earlier. 

The illustration would be the unsubsidized commonwealth choice 

plans that are now being rolled out in the Connector in Massachusetts and is envisioned in other states whereby an employer would 

say look, instead of offering you a group plan, I am going to take 

you down to the Connector and you will each, as employees, have 

a choice of that menu of plans that they have on offer. And you 

pick what is best for you. It is all guaranteed issue. If you leave 

me, you are still in the system. You still have your insurance. You 

take it with you, et cetera. 


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That is structured in a way that under federal employee benefit 

law, it qualifies as employer-sponsored insurance and therefore 

qualifies for favorable tax treatment. The problem becomes that 

that favorable tax treatment is essentially the deduction against 

income and payroll tax. So if you are a lower wage worker who 

pays no income tax, that is worth 15 cents on the dollar to you. 

That is your payroll tax. If you pay the employer/employee share 

15 cent at payroll plus you are in the 15 percent income bracket, 

it is now 30 cents on the dollar up to like 50 cents on the dollar 

for somebody who is maybe making $100,000 in the 28 percent 

bracket, et cetera, or the 31 percent. 

So the idea of tax reform is to change that to redistribute the 

money more equitably. The state can only maximize their citizens’ 

access to those federal benefits. They can’t change the federal benefits. There are other places in federal law where you could make 

changes that would aid the states. 

Mr. BURGESS. Just one quick question. As I understand it right 

now, there is not a public option plan in the federal employee 

health—— 

Mr. HAISLMAIER. No, there is no public option. 

Mr. BURGESS. Would there be an advantage to putting a public 

option plan on the—— 

Mr. HAISLMAIER. Well, my approach to the public option plan is 

I—you know, it strikes me as one of these fad and silver bullet 

things that go around as I talked about earlier. I look at it this 

way. No matter how you cut it, the government always sets the 

rules. 

Now, you in Congress have a set of issues because some of the 

rules are set at the federal level like this federal employee benefit 

law, Inirisa, HIPAA, COBRA, tax treatment of health care, the 

Medicare/Medicaid program. OK, but then other rules like licensure of providers, regulation of insurance is done at the state level. 

So your issue is which one is going to set which set of rules. 

But beyond that, you then have this issue, whether it is federal 

or state is, you know, if competition is going to work, everybody 

competing has to be on the same set of rules, right? OK, now you 

get to point three, which is oK, can the entity that is inherently 

the rule setter field the team in the competition and have that fair? 

I mean, you know, is the public plan going to have to meet the solvency requirements their a private insurer would have to meet in 

Ms. Kofman’s regulations? Are they going to have to have prompt 

pay laws? Are they going to have to have, you know, can you sue 

them, or is sovereign immunity going to prevent you from suing 

them? When they deal with doctors, is it purely on a contractual 

basis, or is it like Medicare where if the doctor does something you 

don’t like, you can say it is criminal because it is fraud. 

These are all questions you have to work out, and depending on 

how you answer them will depend on whether it will work well. 

Mr. PALLONE. We have to move on here. Thank you. 

Mr. BURGESS. To coin a phrase. 

Mr. PALLONE. Ms. Castor. 

Ms. CASTOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the 

panel. Your testimony has been very thoughtful, and I was glad 

that you raised the value of the premium dollar for individual 


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health coverage because I am very skeptical in the individual market that consumers are getting the value of the health benefits they 

need. And I have read testimony and understand a lot of that dollar that consumers pay is going for other purposes other than the 

health of that individual. 

And Ms. Kofman testified that in Maine, insurer administrative 

expenses have more than doubled in the past eight years. This is 

at the same time when all across the health care spectrum, the 

premiums are going way up, and what you receive, what a family 

receives, just isn’t what it used to be. 

And you also noted that in the past three years, the state’s largest insurance carrier has declared $152 million in dividends. So as 

regulators and experts in the individual health care market, tell 

me, on average, how much of the individual health insurance premium dollar is spent on covered medical benefits, and how much 

is spent on marketing and administration including high executive 

compensation and profit? And then how does this percentage or 

medical loss ratio compare to the medical loss ratio in employer 

group health insurance products? And what explains that difference? And what do you recommend? How can families and consumers get a better deal? Why don’t you start? 

Ms. KOFMAN. Thank you very much for your question. I apologize 

for my voice. I am trying to get over a cold. In Maine we have, excuse me, 65 percent medical loss ratio requirements. We have two 

companies in the individual market. One was not meeting the 65 

percent loss ratio. They paid out, I think, 50 some cents on every 

dollar they took in for medical. And so exercising my authority as 

a state regulator, I ended up requiring them to refund the extra 

premiums they collected, and I also fined them $1 million for violating the state law. 

The other major carrier, which is the majority of our market, 

they pretty much pay out over 90 cents on the dollar that they take 

in in medical. Now, there has been a whole lot of discussion about 

the cost of guaranteed issue and adjusted community rating requirements, those protections that allow sick people to access the 

private market. What that means is a lot of what the carriers take 

in, they do pay out in medical claims, but they also achieve healthy 

profits from being in the private market. 

Earlier, you heard that the private insurance market isn’t really 

set up in a way where carriers can assume too much risk. I would 

say if you are going to have a private market where insurance companies are allowed to profit, it is equitable and fair for them to 

take on risk, and we shouldn’t expect taxpayers to pay for the sick 

while insurance companies are very profitable and make millions 

and billions of dollars in the industry. So if you are going to have 

a private system, the carriers have to assume the risks, and the 

taxpayers should not bear the burden. 

Mr. KINGSDALE. If I could add to that, I think it is—to your question about how much administrative costs in a non-group market. 

It is highly variable with the rules that are set up. So in Commonwealth Care, our subsidized program, this is really kind of individual insurance. Individuals sign up. Their administrative costs 

run about 8 percent. In the non-group market more broadly in 


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Massachusetts, they probably run twice that, maybe 12 percent, 

something like that, maybe not twice. 

In California, I am told, brokers earn 10 percent just for their 

services. So it depends very much market by market what the market rules are. And, of course, one of the great things, potentials, 

about the connector—remember my 20 to 30-minute shopping. It is 

all on web—is we can take the distribution costs of non-group insurance because they are very, very high even without large commissions. In an unorganized market, they are just very high. There 

are no scale economies. It is a one-on-one, hand-to-hand combat 

kind of situation to sell a policy and explain it. We can take those 

way down. And if you add scale economies with, on a national 

level, millions of people buying this way, you are talking about a 

couple of percentage rather than 10, 15 percent. But it does depend 

on the rules and how you have structured the market. 

Mr. HAISLMAIER. Ms. Castor, could I comment on that as well, 

or do you—— 

Mr. PALLONE. I am sorry. You can comment. Sure, go ahead. 

Mr. HAISLMAIER. I am sorry. This question comes up at the state 

level a fair amount, and I just would want to make the observation 

I have suggested to states that what they can do, and, in fact, Jon 

might be able to do this in connector too, is to simply publish, apropos of the transparency, the loss ratios. And you publish what last 

year each company for each plan paid out in claims and what they 

retained for administration, profit, et cetera with the proviso that 

you let them buy it down. So in other words, the dollar premium 

that was either paid out in claims or refunded to the policyholders. 

Now, in that kind of a world, imagine you have two plans that 

are pretty much the same and cover the same benefits, et cetera, 

but one does a better job of managing care than the other, oK. And 

the one that does the better job of managing care costs $4,000 instead of $5,000, but to get that care managed, their loss ratio is 

70 percent not 80 percent because they had to spend more in administration. Which would you buy? Would you buy the one that 

spent more in administration but produced the $4,000 premium because they did a better job working with providers to manage care? 

Would you buy the plan that was $5,000 but paid 80 percent out 

in benefits? If you put the information out, people can make those 

decisions would be my suggestion. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Mr. Gingrey. 

Mr. GINGREY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Kingsdale, in regard to the Commonwealth health insurance connector, I was curious to know in comparing the Commonwealth Care versus the 

Commonwealth Choice, what has been the experience in regard to 

what consumers are choosing? Maybe that was in your written testimony. I did read it, but it was the wee hours this morning. But 

what is the breakdown at this point? 

Mr. KINGSDALE. Yes, there are two very distinct programs so it 

is going to be hard for me to, I think, answer your question in a 

way that is going to satisfy probably the intent. So the four health 

plans that are available—and now we just could open that up to 

competition because they had restrictions in the original legislation. So we are adding a fifth, the first new entrant, major new entrant into the insurance business in Massachusetts in decades. But 


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those four/soon five all basically serve Medicaid and lower income 

folks. And while two of them also participate in the unsubsidized 

program that has—— 

Mr. GINGREY. So your Commonwealth Care is the subsidized program? 

Mr. KINGSDALE. Right, and the Commonwealth Choice is unsubsidized. That is dominated by commercial insurers who are not in 

the low-income Medicare—— 

Mr. GINGREY. So they really don’t—— 

Mr. KINGSDALE. They are really very separate. 

Mr. GINGREY. The patients or the consumers don’t have a choice. 

It depends on their income status. 

Mr. KINGSDALE. Right. 

Mr. GINGREY. If they need a subsidy, then their choice is care. 

Mr. KINGSDALE. Right. 

Mr. GINGREY. If they don’t need a subsidy, then their choice is 

choice. 

Mr. KINGSDALE. I will take a stab at one thing that might be 

helpful, which is because the transparency and because the price 

differential, the premium differential is 100 percent borne by the 

individual making the choice, there is disproportionately large purchase of lower-priced plans even though the lower-priced plans may 

have by far much less brand name recognition than the higher 

priced plan offering the same. 

Mr. GINGREY. Well, let me ask you this follow-up. In regard to 

that, in the Care plan, the subsidized plan, I guess physician fees, 

reimbursement rates for provider care is set. And are you finding 

that the many physicians, the acceptable rate of the Care plan in 

the commonwealth is pretty high? 

Mr. KINGSDALE. Well, yes, and that is—— 

Mr. GINGREY. Are you running into problems with that? 

Mr. KINGSDALE. Not really, and that is part of an ethos of shared 

responsibility. There is tremendous support for this program 

among physicians, hospitals, insurers, employers, et cetera. You 

know, all but 2 legislators, all but 2 of 190 voted for the thing. 

But Medicaid MCOs that serve that lower income population, 

Commonwealth Care, while the fees are not set, so they can get negotiated up, kind of the reference point, the starting point that people have in mind when they start those negotiations are Medicaid 

fees. And they say you are going to pay us 10 percent more than 

that. As opposed to the commercial side where they might say we 

are starting at 150 percent of Medicare. 

Mr. GINGREY. Right. 

Mr. KINGSDALE. So it is a bifurcated set of negotiations. 

Mr. GINGREY. Well, the reason I asked that question, of course, 

as we go forward and we are looking at all the options and hearing 

from all the experts in regard to, you know, the federal exchange 

connector, if you will, and the public option plan. And I just wonder 

if physicians are not forced, if they take any patients within the exchange that they would also have to take the public option. 

But if not and those fees are set so low, then you are going to 

have a lot of resistance, a lot of push back. And again what we are 

saying is what good is that card if there is no doctor that is going 


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to accept the public option. So that is a concern of mine, other than 

the additional concern of the crowd out. 

Let me shift real quickly to—is it—— 

Mr. HAISLMAIER. Haislmaier. 

Mr. GINGREY. I have already messed up once today on pronouncing one of my colleague’s name. Doctor, I wanted to ask you 

on page three of your testimony, you speak at some length about 

market reforms that would ‘‘realign insurer incentives away from 

avoiding risk and toward maximizing value’’ and you cite in your 

testimony the need for risk-adjusted mechanisms to ensure the 

market works smoothly and fairly for all insurers and policy holders. 

It would seem to me that these market reforms that you talk 

about in your written testimony might address some of the major 

breakdowns in health care today without requiring governmentcontrolled care. And I would like in the 15 seconds left, could you 

elaborate on these risk-adjusted mechanisms a little bit more if the 

chairman would bear with me? 

Mr. HAISLMAIER. Yes, sir. Very simply—and I reference two papers in the footnotes in this testimony that are on our Web site 

that I wrote on the subject if you want to go into it in more length. 

But essentially in a market that is underwritten where the insurer could turn you away, OK, what we have created is a highrisk pool that says well, you can be guaranteed issue into there. 

OK, so the person who is sick gets sent over there, all right. If you 

have a market where the insurers can’t turn you away, as we are 

talking about in the employer group market when you go to the 

connector or if you would expand guaranteed issue to the individuals, then you can’t send the sick person off there. 

So what you do is you create essentially the same mechanism. 

It is just the insurers get in the room together and they put in the 

pot all their claims. I have five diabetics, you have three cancer patients, and we are going to sort it out and do it in a fair way. 

Now there are many different ways to do that, but that is essentially the concept behind it. And my point is for the market to work 

well so that the insurer can say hey, you know, I do a good job of 

treating diabetes. I can help coordinate your care so you get better 

results at a lower price, and then they get all the diabetics and 

somebody else gets all the cancer patients. Well, they can work it 

out in the back room on their own. That is what a risk-adjustor 

pool does OK, and it spreads the cost among everybody else. As opposed to saying well, you are sick, go there, and then we are going 

to spread that cost over everybody else. 

So it is the same concept. It just depends on the market you 

have. Again the papers discuss it in more length. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. I am going to have to stop you because 

they are telling us we are going to have votes, and I want to get 

the last two members in here. Ms. Capps. 

Ms. CAPPS. I am sorry. Thank you very much, and I just got a 

tip, but I also have some questions I want to ask. This has been 

a very interesting panel, and I appreciate your contributions, each 

one of you. I will single out two people because five minutes goes 

very quickly. But I understand, Ms. Pollitz, before I ask you my 


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question, which I am very interested in your response to, that you 

never got to weigh in on the risk adjustment or risk insurance. 

Ms. POLLITZ. Well, I didn’t think I was asked but—— 

Ms. CAPPS. No, that is why I am giving you a chance to if you 

could briefly do it. 

Ms. POLLITZ. Sure, I think reinsurance is a mechanism that has 

been tried on a voluntary basis in a lot of insurance markets. And 

public reinsurance has been tried in a few states as well. It is simply another way to subsidize health insurance at the end of the day 

if it is public reinsurance. Instead of subsidizing the premiums, 

which come regularly on the first of every month, you need to sort 

of reach in and find somehow the high-cost claims or the high-cost 

patients. 

So it, I think, can achieve the same thing. It is more complicated. 

There are many more transactions involved, and at the end of the 

day, you need to make sure that if the end result is to subsidize 

the premiums, if that is what you want, to have the premiums reduced, then you need to have very, very good transparency to make 

sure that all of those savings from the reinsurance actually find 

their way back into reducing the premiums. Otherwise, you know, 

kind of like we are having with AIG now. 

Ms. CAPPS. I hear you. 

Ms. POLLITZ. You are putting a bailout in, and you are not getting the result that you want. 

Ms. CAPPS. OK, thank you. Now, could I ask you the question 

that I had intended? And you will understand why when I tell you 

where I am coming from. I am hesitant about proposals that suggest that people should just purchase insurance in the individual 

market, whichever state they are from or wherever they are, because there are states like California that offer much stronger minimum protection for insurance. 

For example, California mandates screening for osteoporosis 

while most other states do not. That happens to be a topic I am 

personally very interested in. California also requires private insurers to cover treatment for eating disorders. More than half of the 

states do not. So that would make a huge difference to Californians 

if they got their insurance in another state that then refused to 

cover—and they came to California and refused to cover that. 

Wouldn’t a public option be able to account for variances in state 

protections and be more consumer friendly? Also couldn’t a public 

plan be formulated in a way that protects the strongest minimum 

coverage provided to individuals so that you would get the benefit 

from living in a state where these things were mandated? 

Ms. POLLITZ. It is absolutely up to the Congress to determine 

whether you want to set these standards at the lowest or the highest common denominator or somewhere in between. So you absolutely could create a public program that provides for comprehensive coverage so that people get the care they need everywhere. 

And I would defer to Mila on the other issues about selling coverage. 

Ms. CAPPS. Right. 

Ms. POLLITZ. In addition to the concerns about not being able to 

access benefits, I think there are real questions about—and I have 

enormous respect for Mila—but whether she has the resources to 


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enforce against a plan in California. Or a resident of her state who 

would buy 3,000 miles away and then get into trouble—— 

Ms. CAPPS. Right. 

Ms. POLLITZ [continuing]. I think would be very difficult. 

Ms. CAPPS. And some of us in states like California are worried 

about the opposite, but I could see it going both ways. For example, 

people who worked so hard in California to do the things like what 

I have just mentioned. This would be a huge step backward if we 

would be forced into what we would consider a step backward. 

And I am going to need a little extra time, Mr. Chairman, because I kind of did something else too. But because, Ms. Kofman, 

I am really interested. You can speak to this one issue if you would 

like to. But I wanted to learn more about programs that you have 

been able to create, which bridge the gap between Medicaid-covered 

individuals and those who are uninsured but don’t quite qualify for 

Medicaid. 

For example, I will tell you where I am coming from in my district. In fact, in each of the three counties I represent, we have 

seen some very innovative proposals such as county-organized 

health systems which better capture all Medicaid eligible individuals in using a sort of managed care model, non-profit, but a locally 

organized one. 

And also then there is another program in Ventura County, 

which refers to the person I acknowledged this morning in my 

opening statement. Because she lived in Ventura County, those 

who are uninsured but don’t qualify for MediCal or Medicaid in 

Ventura County have access to another program. And they have 

seen such a dramatic decline in emergency room visits for non-urgent care as a result. And that is the kind of outcomes we should 

strive for because they can put that money back into the system 

and help extend it to more individuals. 

The reason it works—and this is what I would like you to verify 

or add to—is because it is public-public partnership whereby the 

local government can provide the innovation and creativity in creating a system that works best for their particular population. 

Can you talk—I know it is briefly now—about how have you 

done this? How have you managed to tailor a plan that Maine really benefits from? 

Ms. KOFMAN. We have a slightly different partnership, publicprivate partnership which I call a bridge program. It is called 

Deargo Choice. Right now, due to funding challenges, it is not open 

for new enrollment. But essentially the state helps to pay for the 

premiums. There is a private insurance company that provides the 

coverage, but it is a Deargo agency that negotiates the benefits, the 

price, and people who really can’t afford the private coverage but 

are working and make too much money to qualify for the public insurance program, that is the place where they can get coverage 

where there is a private payer that pays their medical bills. And 

the state helps them with the premiums. 

The program has served over 23,000 people, both small business 

workers, their families, as well as individuals. Unfortunately because of funding challenges, it hasn’t been open for new enrollment. And as premiums have gone up even slightly in that proVerDate Mar 15 2010 23:52 Mar 23, 2012 Jkt 067813 PO 00000 Frm 00155 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A813.XXX A813

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gram last year—I believe it was 11 percent, which in our market 

is slight. 

I can tell you that the major carrier recently came in with a premium increase of 40 percent, and actually that was for their consumer-driven product higher than the other products they sell. So 

11 percent premium increase for the Deargo Choice is not as high 

as the rest of the market is asking for. But that forced some people 

to leave that program because they just couldn’t afford even the 11 

percent due to limited incomes. Their wages have not gone up, and 

everything else has gone up, the price of food, gas, energy. So it has 

been really different absent a strong and real financing mechanism. 

There has been a lot of talk here that states could do this. If we 

were able to address—— 

Mr. PALLONE. We are going to have to—I am going to have to 

cut you short because we have one more member, and we have 

three votes so—— 

Ms. CAPPS. Well, could she finish her sentence? I just wanted to 

hear—— 

Mr. PALLONE. Sure, go ahead. 

Ms. KOFMAN. States need help. If we were able to tackle the 

health care crisis, we would have done it. We want to do it. We 

cannot do it alone despite Ed’s comments earlier. We need help, 

and we want to be your partners in tackling the health care crisis. 

Mr. PALLONE. OK. 

Ms. CAPPS. Well, to make this work, there are times when the 

federal government should really shift the balance a little bit more 

when states are having a hard time. Or that is one of the ways 

that it could survive. Thank you. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Mr. Shadegg. 

Mr. SHADEGG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Kofman, I just 

want to make sure. Did I hear you earlier say that there are only 

two carriers in the individual market in Maine? 

Ms. KOFMAN. Actively selling. That is correct. 

Mr. SHADEGG. Tragically I think that is the situation in most 

states where people forced into the individual market have almost 

no choice whatsoever. A public plan which they could buy as an individual would be another option for them that would give them at 

least one other choice? Is that what you understand? 

Ms. KOFMAN. Yes, people want real choices. To the extent that 

the public plan offers good coverage, adequate coverage that pays 

for you when you are sick, that is a real new option that people 

would benefit from. I talk to providers and individuals alike, and 

people are losing faith in the private market. 

There is this perception out there because the profits have been 

so high that claims decisions are not made in the best interest of 

the insured person. And I can tell you they are, but the perception 

there is not the reality, and I think many people would choose the 

public option because of those reasons. And I think the public option would give—— 

Mr. SHADEGG. I understand that. 

Ms. KOFMAN [continuing]. Real competition for the private plans 

out there. 


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Mr. SHADEGG. Well, I believe that there have been instances 

where benefits have not been paid in the interest of the beneficiaries. Indeed, I conducted a long campaign against HMOs who 

I think were denying care to try to make profit. But we have people 

forced into the individual market often because of the tax treatment. Some people can get health care inexpensively through their 

employer on taxpayer favored basis. But if you go buy it in the individual market, you pay with after-tax dollars, making it much 

more expensive. 

Would you then favor mechanisms that would create other group 

purchasing options so that people could pool through a mechanism 

other than their employer? 

Ms. KOFMAN. I think we need a more equitable way to help people buy coverage, and people shouldn’t be disadvantaged because 

their employer doesn’t offer—— 

Mr. SHADEGG. I couldn’t agree more. 

Ms. KOFMAN [continuing]. In the individual market. I think in 

terms of pooling, the price of pooling—pooling in itself doesn’t get 

you anything unless there are real protections and oversight 

around pooling. So I would be very supportive of increasing and 

incentivizing more pooling as long as there are real protections for 

people who want to be in those pools. 

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Haislmaier, high-risk pools. As I understand 

it, you just tried to explain or discussed with Dr. Burgess the 

issue—or maybe it was with Dr. Gingrey—people who are high cost 

can either be put in a high-risk pool or kept within the existing 

pool of insurers in a given state. Is that what the paper you discussed addressed? 

Mr. HAISLMAIER. Basically what you are doing is you have a— 

both of them, a high-risk pool or a risk-transfer pool are mechanisms for pooling on a market-wide basis. So you start at the individual insurer level where they say well, I get some sick people and 

some healthy people, and there is a cross-subsidization of the sick 

by the healthy. 

The next step is to say well, we are going to take all the insurers 

in the market, and we are going to do this same sort of cross-subsidization for the whole market, defined however you want, a region, a state, whatever. But for purposes of this probably a state. 

Now, at that point, you have a decision. If the insurance is provided to the individual on the basis of underwriting where the insurer—a seller-driven market where the insurer can refuse to offer 

coverage, then what you do is you send that sick individual over 

to a high-risk pool. The excess cost is then passed back onto all 

those people you did—— 

Mr. SHADEGG. I wrote the state high-risk pool. 

Mr. HAISLMAIER. Right. 

Mr. SHADEGG. What is encouraging—— 

Mr. HAISLMAIER. So all I am saying is a risk-transfer pool is simply the same mechanism, but it is for a market where it is guaranteed issue and you can’t send the individual off. You take the individual, you send the claim off. 

Mr. SHADEGG. Let me change topics. Ms. Capps just talked about 

the fact that she loved the California mandates. She likes certain 

things that are mandated under California law for coverage. You 


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mentioned earlier one of your concerns about a so-called public 

plan—and I think you are right. It is the current system in vogue 

or the idea in vogue—would be well, what does it cover, what 

doesn’t it cover. I think you also touched upon a point that I think 

I touched upon in my questioning earlier. And that is if the government offers a public plan and the government also sets the rules 

for that plan and for all the other plans, isn’t the government both 

a player in the game and the referee of the game? And I would like 

to see if you do agree with that point and if you would expand upon 

it. 

Mr. HAISLMAIER. Well, very simply, the last point, the government will always be the rule setter. So in a state, any state right 

now, they could set up a public plan in competition. I mean Massachusetts could do it with the connector if they wanted to, OK. You 

will always have that question of do they play by exactly the same 

rules because what we know is that when you have different rules, 

then you will have market segmentation. 

We have seen this in Maryland. We have seen this—I mean I 

have just been dealing with Washington state where they allowed 

association plans one set of rules for the small group market and 

commercial insurers another set of rules, and it has created all 

sorts of problems. So the first rule, whether it is a public or private 

plan or two groups of private plans, is, is everybody playing on the 

same rules. 

So that is one level of questions that you would confront regardless at any state. Now, if you are at the federal level, you have all 

those questions, but now you have an additional set of questions, 

and the additional set of questions is, will the 50 states have different standards. As Representative Capps pointed out, whose 

standards are we going to apply nationally? OK, so you have all the 

same set of questions you have to deal with, plus you have another 

set. 

Mr. PALLONE. We are going to have to—— 

Mr. SHADEGG. Well, just, Dr. Kingsdale, you said there are 

100,000 people who have not joined or not paid in, they are simply 

unenrolled. In the first year, right. That was going back to ’07. 

What does the system do for or about them? How do they get care? 

Mr. PALLONE. Quickly because we have to vote. 

Mr. KINGSDALE. OK, well if they are low income, they wouldn’t 

be subject to that penalty. So they would basically be self-pay. They 

are part of the 2.5 percent that we haven’t insured. 

Mr. SHADEGG. OK, and—— 

Mr. PALLONE. All right. Well, we are going to run out of time if 

we want to vote. Thank you all. Again this has been very helpful 

in our efforts to try to put together legislation. And you may get 

some additional questions from members that you can respond to 

in writing. The clerk will notify you of that. But without objection, 

this meeting of the subcommittee is adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 2:48 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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