Regulatory Threats to Health

The Jan./Feb. issue of the Utne Reader has an interesting article (not available online yet, near as I can tell) about the Ithaca Health Alliance, a health co-op that helps you pay for certain medical expenses (broken bones up to $2,500, burns up to $3,000, no coverage for drugs or preventative care) for a mere $100 a year expenditure on your part. But don't call it an insurance company. Utne buries in graf nine one of the more interesting details about why this sort of approach--which works great as the article tells it--isn't more widespread:

The Ithaca Health Alliance takes pains to call itself a "health assurance" project. The distinction is more than semantic. In 2004, the New York State Health Insurance Board sent a letter inquiring about its activities. The board's regulations, which would require [the Alliance] to maintain a $25 million general fund and to offer specific categories of coverage, would effectively spell the end of the project. With nudging from [the Alliance's founder and board], state senator Jim Seward asked the board to leave the Ithaca Health Alliance alone.

I hope they continue to do so. But government's role in the impossible difficulties and expense of health care and health insurance in today's world should get bigger play in stories like this.

Comments

[Hugo]

Man, I wish I lived in Ithica.
/college student
//can't even afford the crappy univ. health plan

[droogy]

What a great program. I would think the government a low-cost medical plan to reduce the number of people without access to healthcare.

It also helps relieve the burden on hospitals - millions are spent every year on providing emergency medical care to people without insurance.

[keith]

This was about a year or three in place when I moved on out of Ithaca. At that point, it covered ambulance rides and setting broken bones and got member discounts. Point of interest - the founder of the alternative currency Ithaca Hours (http://www.ithacahours.org/), Paul Glover, is also one of the founders of the health organization.

I thought there was an H&R item maybe a year ago that discussed alternative currency or the Hours, but my search didn't turn up anything.

[thoreau]

I've tried to persuade my mother (a nurse) that blanket insurance coverage isn't always the most sensible arrangement. I've tried to point out that mandating coverage of certain items means that more people will go without any insurance protection altogether. And I've tried to point out that getting routine care handled via insurance only makes routine care more expensive by adding a middle man, without bringing any significant risk reduction.

To her, being a nurse, these notions are inhumane.

I am not optimistic about health care policy in this country becoming more rational.

[kevrob]

Can one get insurance against comment spam from Singapore?

Kevin

[Don Mynack]

This doesn't seem to do a whole lot other than insure against some very specific, very narrowly defined health problems - broken bones, burns, stitches, appendectomy. You only get a 10% off discount with your doctor - I used to get better than that when I had no insurance (hint: cash is king, even with doctors. I negotiated down to about what half of what I would have paid with insurance for a regular office visit, i.e $50 cash vs. the $85 billed to the insurance company.)

Certainly, these kind of things could help, but I like the idea of a catastrophic/high deductable policy a lot better than this. Also, I don't like their push for universal health care in the "comic". But, hell, it's only $100/year.

Also, I like the specific line item for rabies treatment - $600. Is that a big problem in Ithica?