Published: August 12, 2008 11:59 pm         

Long Thompson presents health care plan to Hoosiers

TERRE HAUTE — Creating insurance purchasing pools and encouraging young Hoosier adults to access health insurance are among ways Democrat gubernatorial candidate Jill Long Thompson said she plans to make health care in Indiana more accessible and affordable.

“While some of the issues regarding the high cost of health care need to be addressed at the national level, there are things we can do in Indiana. One of them is to create a health insurance purchasing pool, which would help to vastly reduce the costs for individuals in smaller sized businesses,” Long Thompson said Tuesday in a telephone interview.

“It would allow small businesses and individuals to pool for the purchasing of health insurance, which would result in rates that are comparable to what large corporations pay,” she said. “You spread the risk over a larger number of people and you are gaining efficiencies in terms of administrative costs,” she said.

Among the 90,000 small businesses in Indiana, just 34 percent offer employees insurance.

Tax credit incentives would be made to small businesses that buy through the insurance pool.

“There is already a deduction that is allowed on the federal tax code, which gets carried through the state income tax. This would be beyond what is currently allowed,” she said.

A quasi-governmental agency would be established to work with insurance companies for insurance coverage. That effort would require a bill through the Indiana General Assembly, Long Thompson said.

Long Thompson had been scheduled to visit St. Ann’s Clinic at 1436 Locust St. on Tuesday in Terre Haute, but canceled the visit after more than an hour delay after an accident stopped traffic on Interstate 70. The accident sparked Long Thompson to say she would support efforts to add truck-only traffic lanes to the interstate.

The Democrat candidate said nearly one in three Americans between the ages of 18 and 26 is uninsured, which in Indiana equates to 186,500 Hoosiers. Current law allows young Hoosier adults to be covered on their parents’ insurance plan, as long as the plan is offered by their parents’ employer, until age 24.

“I believe many people don’t realize this,” she said, adding she would work with the insurance industry to expand that to families who work for businesses that offer self-insured plans.

Indiana ranks 14th in the nation in terms of spending on health care costs, Long Thompson said. That spending includes health factors such as smoking and obesity. Health care premiums in the state, from 2000 to 2006, rose 7.6 times faster than the average Hoosier worker’s earnings, she said.

Costs can be controlled by increasing bulk purchasing in state pharmaceutical plans by requiring other state agencies, such as the Indiana Department of Correction, Indiana Department of Health and Hoosier Healthwise, to participate in that bulk buying.

Also, Long Thompson would revive the inactive Indiana Health Informatics Corp. for electronic exchange of health care information and require the same health insurance forms be used by all insurers for the same functions, “reducing the bureaucracy and delays in the health insurance system,” she said.

Long Thompson’s health care proposals can be viewed at www.hoosiersforjill.com.



Howard Greninger can be reached at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com