Safety Net Study Committee Nearing End

The legislature’s Safety Net Study Committee, is looking to Massachusetts as an example of a health insurance exchange.

Massachusetts’ recent health care reform bill, in addition to making health insurance coverage mandatory, also restructured how employers and individuals access coverage.

Ed Haislmaier is a policy analyst with the Washington DC-based Heritage Foundation. He assisted Massachusetts in crafting its policy, and says the exchange works as a clearinghouse for all insurance plans. Instead of shopping among several insurers for plans, employers join the exchange where employees can then pick their own plan offered from a variety of insurers.

“As an employer group it has certain advantages because you get the benefits of using tax-free money to buy health care as opposed to if you come in as an individual. But some people like the self-employed only have the option to come in as an individual. But once people are inside, what they’re buying is personal, portable state-regulated insurance.”

Haislmaier says if Tennessee did consider enacting an exchange, then Governor Phil Bredesen’s Cover Tennessee plan would become one of options in the exchange.

The study committee will issue its recommendations at its very last meeting in early summer.