Coalition Says State Agency Report Ignores Health Insurance Crisis
AUSTIN--A coalition of religious and consumer groups said it’s alarming that a key state government report on insurance released this week barely mentioned Texas’ ailing health insurance market. Advocates said that the Sunset Commission staff evaluation of the Texas Department of Insurance released Wednesday, May 21, gives the Legislature little guidance to address one of the most serious problems facing Texans.
“Health insurance got stiffed in this review, even though it’s the one kind of insurance that every single Texan needs. A market that fails to serve one out of every four prospective customers is clearly in need of strong legislative and regulatory direction. Legislators should make sure that TDI exists to make insurance available and affordable for taxpayers, not just to maintain a playing field for the insurance industry,” said Bee Moorhead, director of the interfaith group Texas Impact.
Stacey Pogue of the Center for Public Policy Priorities said legislators should adopt health insurance regulatory strategies that have helped other states keep more people insured. “Other states have better insured rates than Texas not because they have bigger public welfare programs, but because their residents have better access to private insurance. If legislators want private insurance to be the norm for Texans like it is in other states, they should look at a combination of sensible market regulation and targeted programs to increase access to coverage that have made affordable insurance available to more people in other states.” Pogue said.
In a report issued earlier this year, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation said Texans saw health insurance premiums jump 40 percent in five years. That's 10 times faster than the increase in Texas income. Texans have the third-highest premiums in the nation. Experts said that is because the state has the highest number of uninsured people in the country.
The groups disagreed strongly with the Sunset staff report’s recommendation to abolish the Office of Public Insurance Counsel, which the authors said is no longer needed because Texas no longer allows consumers to participate in the rate-setting process. “Because of the increasing importance and complexity of insurance, OPIC needs to be strengthened, not abolished. The agency should have the authority to help individual and group health insurance consumers evaluate whether the rates they are quoted are fair,” said Bruce Bower, an attorney with the nonprofit Texas Legal Services Center.
Sunset staff qualified their recommendation to abolish OPIC, saying if legislators decide to strengthen TDI’s role in making insurance accessible and affordable, then they might want to keep OPIC. Bower commented: "Before the Legislature makes any decisions about TDI or OPIC, it must first decide what it has the will to do about the health insurance market. If the Legislature wants to create the kind of fair market that Texans deserve, then the Legislature will strengthen TDI’s role in enforcing the rules and keep OPIC as a watchdog."
Toni McElroy, president of Texas ACORN, said Texans want strong legislative fixes for the private insurance market. “Working Texans will be talking about this problem in the coming months, and I hope legislators are listening,” McElroy said.
The advocates announced that they will be jointly sponsoring a series of town hall meetings on health insurance around the state throughout the summer. The first meeting is scheduled for June 12 in Houston.
###