Sen. Paul, physicians ponder health insurance options

Aug. 11--Sen. Rand Paul discussed the use of Association Health Plans and open market options as solutions to health care issues with Owensboro Health officials, local physicians and community members Thursday at a roundtable meeting at the Owensboro-Daviess County Regional Airport.

The stop was a part of a series of visits Paul has taken across western Kentucky over the past two days. He visited an industrial hemp farm in Murray and held similar discussion in Fulton, Paducah and Marion earlier that day.

During the roundtable, Paul discussed some of his concerns about past Republican efforts for health care reform and shared some of his hopes for future legislation.

"In the end, we didn't come to a consensus, but it may be a silver lining that we didn't come up with the bill we need yet," Paul said. "When the last bill was in negotiation, my blood boiled that my own party had written a bill giving billions to an already billion-dollar industry."

Paul highlighted ideas, such as Association Health Plans, as an option for providing insurance to larger groups of people without the fear of pre-existing conditions. AHPs are policies acquired through a trade group or work association.

"With more people purchasing a plan together, there is more bargaining power with the insurance companies for affordable coverage," Paul said. "We also need to loosen the ability for groups to purchase plans across state lines to add competition to the market."

Kentucky's experience with AHPs in the mid- and late-1990s has been used as a case study for market disruption when healthy purchasers left individual plans for more lean and cheaper coverage through group plans. A risk pool developed, causing insurance providers to leave the state individual market.

Paul said he had been in talks with President Donald Trump and other officials about market solutions like the AHPs and premium pricing for services.

Paul said an "insurance bill" was likely to be approved by the Senate health care committee he is a part of, but it wouldn't be the kind of sweeping reform he and others had hoped for.

"It won't be a big, grand bill, but there is legislation and discussion moving through the committee," Paul said.

Greg Strahan, president and CEO of Owensboro Health, said he was happy to hear that there are plans for passable legislation that could lend stability.

In a discussion about the effects of Medicaid expansion on health care providers, Paul said initiatives that may seem great for hospitals and health systems might be damaging to the rest of the country.

"We shouldn't try to fix the system for everybody," Paul said. "Not everyone can be on Medicaid; we need a smaller group to subsidize. It will take some tough love."

Strahan said that nonprofit health systems like OH recognize and embrace that some populations will need assistance for care but need the ability to control where care comes from.

"We do have to take care of some folks, and we don't oppose that," Strahan said. "We can give them care, but we have to have the ability to dictate where they go when they come to us. We can't handle every issue through the emergency room."

Jacob Dick, 270-228-2837, [email protected],Twitter: @jdickjournalism

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