Bucshon discusses what's ahead for health insurance

U.S. Rep. Larry Bucshon says flexibility and the expansion of health savings accounts are keys to keeping health insurance premium costs down as Republicans work to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

Bucshon, R-8th, spoke Wednesday in Terre Haute with a group of eight people during a roundtable discussion at the downtown office of Thompson Thrift. 

The congressman said he called the meeting to discuss insurance reform and hear what some Terre Haute business owners say about the Affordable Care Act.

Flexibility is key to helping people find medical insurance, Bucshon said, instead of mandating people to have insurance.

“I think flexibility is always a good thing, with market competition and having different options for individuals to choose. For young healthy people, a health savings account and maybe a catastrophic health plan is what they would choose. 

”If older and sicker, that is not the thing for you,” he said. “You might need an HSA...and need a health insurance plan with a low deductible. I think trying to create a system with only uniform options for all of our citizens is not working.”

In a health savings account, an individual pays into the account and draws money out for certain medical expenses tax-free. Most are used for out-of-pocket medical, dental and vision expenses but not used to pay health insurance premiums.

”I think health savings account expansion is something that we need to do,” Bucshon said. “One thing that a health savings account does is it gives the consumer some buy-in with their own healthcare. They realize, because some of the money (being spent) is their own, some is the government’s money ... they don’t utilize the emergency room for non-emergency services because that money is something that comes out of their pocket,” he said.

Bucshon said a health savings plan decreases the price for an insurance policy “because the insurance company doesn’t need to cover every little thing, every little hang nail or every little medical problem, because the HSA payment pays that. So the insurance companies, if you have an HSA, have the ability to offer cheaper insurance policies because they know they are not paying first dollar for small problems, but are available when you have a bigger health issue.”

Bucshon said he supports continuing coverage of children through age 26 and backs keeping pre-existing coverage.

Bill Treadway, a former chairman of the Vigo County Republican Party who teaches history at Indiana Wesleyan University, said he had loss of income and his insurance policy was declared “a junk policy” under the Affordable Care Act. “I had to get a second job and sometimes a third job, and it made it very difficult,” he said.

Bob Baesler, owner of Baesler’s Market, said he had 350 employees on health group plan until 2015. However, premiums went up to as much as $2,500 for family coverage, with single employee coverage at $975 per month.

”Our problem was we had a small, unhealthy older group. My frustration with the Affordable Health Care Act was it did not do one thing to make health care more affordable, it only used tax dollars to pay to offset premiums,” Baesler said.

Baesler said his company helped about 70 employees to get coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

”We helped them get the coverage, we raised their pay to offset the premium. The problem was because there was not payroll deduction, which the government would not allow, many employees at the end of the month, with the premium there even though it was not very much, had a light bill and (used the premium money) to pay the light bill. Then their premium lapsed and they were out,” Baesler said.

”I think today, we are down to only 14 employees who have (coverage under) the Affordable Health Care,” he said. 

Baesler said he would like to see insurance coverage groups expanded across state lines. “For insurance to work, you need numbers. You can’t do it with 20, or 70 or 80 people, you need 1,000 people in a group to get the premiums down,” he said.

<\Iz186667>Reporter Howard Greninger can be reached 812-231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com. Follow on Twitter@TribStarHoward.