FixHealthCarePolicy

Thousands of Montanans Could Lose Private Health Insurance, Study Shows

President Barack Obama heads to Bozeman, Mont., on Friday to sway a skeptical public on his health care plan. Montana, like five other states analyzed by The Lewin Group, would be hit hard by a government-run public plan.

An estimated 256,700 residents in Montana could lose their private, employer-based coverage if Congress passes a House health reform bill, according to state-specific analysis of The American Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 released last month by The Heritage Foundation.

Heritage commissioned The Lewin Group, a highly respected health care policy and management consulting firm, to examine the impact a newly created government-run health plan within the House bill would have on Americans with private health insurance, including employer-based coverage, as well as its impact on Montana’s doctors and hospitals.

In addition to examining the national impact, Lewin analyzed several states including Montana to show how the major regions of the United States would be affected. Lewin’s estimates assume that all of the state’s employers become eligible for enrollment in the new public plan and health insurance exchange starting in the third year of implementation.

Of the estimated 489,200 Montana residents with private health insurance, 52 percent would transition out of private coverage, Lewin reports. Plus, 62 percent of the state’s population who get their private insurance from the workplace could have their existing coverage change or disappear under the House health bill.

“The data highlights the nasty, unintended consequences a government-run health insurance plan could have on states,” said Heritage Vice President Stuart Butler. “Many employees will be pushed into a public plan as employers respond to the legislation”s incentives to drop coverage.”

Another key finding from Lewin: 32 percent of Montana’s uninsured population would still lack coverage. Of the estimated 180,800 people without health coverage, the legislation would only reduce the uninsured by 123,200, leaving 57,600 Montanans without coverage.

Tags: HR 3200, Max Baucus, Montana, The Lewin Group

Obamacare: You Will Lose Your Current Insurance. Period. End of Story.

This weekend President Obama dedicated his weekly address to defending Congress’s plans for an overhaul of the nation’s health care system.

He argued, “Once you’ve seen enough ads and heard enough people yelling on TV you might begin to wonder whether there’s a grain of truth to what they are saying.”

Here’s the truth, brand-new analysis from The Heritage Foundation — conducted by The Lewin Group— shows that the public plan component within the House Democrats’ health reform bill is in conflict with how the Congress and the President are selling their reform plan.

“If you like health your plan, you can keep it, the only thing that will change is that you’ll pay less.” Remember that? Well, according to the new Lewin study:

– Approximately 103 million people would be covered under the new public plan and as a consequence about 83.4 million people would lose their private insurance. This would represent a 48.4 percent reduction in the number of people with private coverage.

– About 88.1 million workers would see their current private, employer-sponsored health plan go away and would be shifted to the public plan.

– Yearly premiums for the typical American with private coverage could go up by as much as $460 per privately insured person, as a result of increased cost-shifting stemming from a public plan modeled on Medicare.

So, is there truth in the way the President and Congress are advertising their plans?

In his address President Obama asserted that, “If you like your current insurance, you keep that insurance. Period. End of Story.” But what the President forgot to tell you is that his assertion is only true if the story were fiction.

President Obama has stated that any plan he’d sign must include a health insurance exchange with a public “option.”

Tags: crowd out, ObamaCare, public plan, The Lewin Group