Be patient with health care reform, urges Mike Kreidler

Washington’s insurance commissioner is urging patience as the nation adopts health care reform. Former Congressman Mike Kreidler earned praise and criticism from some of his one-time Capitol Hill colleagues during a House subcommittee hearing Wednesday focusing on the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act.

Kreidler conceded troubles with the implementation of health care reform, particularly the online enrollment. And he said it’s OK to criticize.

“But at the same time, we need to solve problems because going forward, we’re talking about people that are hurting. We need to make changes, not just for these people, but also to address the challenges for the U.S. economy if we don’t make these changes,” Kreidler told the House Ways and Means subcommittee on Health Care.

Kreidler, invited to speak by ranking committee Democrat, Washington Congressman Jim McDermott, reminded his former colleagues that Rome was not built in a day.

“What I would like to urge people to do is be patient,” he said. “This is in the early stages of enrollment. Focus on the benefits of the Affordable Care Act to consumers.”

Washington’s new insurance marketplace had the attention of the subcommittee chairman, Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas.

“You’re running as good an exchange that exists in America, yet so far have only signed up a fraction of those in Washington state who’ve received cancellation notices. We’re all concerned about a potential coverage gap on January first as a result, again, of this defective roll-out.”

A coverage gap would result if not enough healthy young people sign up for insurance to offset the higher cost of covering older Americans.

“Insurance only works if you have good risk and bad risk,” conceded Kreidler. President Obama has set enrollment targets to balance the insurance pool and Kreidler acknowledged that the targets are not being met.

“One of the challenges that make it more difficult is all of the controversy around the Affordable Care Act. Such things as cancelled policies and the like only wind up offering more distraction and we need to make sure that people are incentivized, realize they have an obligation for personal responsibility, and they do the sign-up for health insurance so they don’t have to have their rates paid for effectively by other people who are insured,” argued Kreidler.

He insisted that people, generally, love the benefits that are mandated under the reforms, even if they don’t like ObamaCare in general.

The state of Washington has more than one million people without health insurance and another 200,000 to 300,000 who are under-insured who will benefit from reform, according to Kreidler. But Congressman Dave Reichert, (R-Wash.) said ObamaCare is not providing what Americans want in health care reform.

“What we want, really, is quality health care, affordable health care, we want access and we want the freedom to choose and I think that the ObamaCare plan, which we oppose, hasn’t lived up to any of those promises.”

The subcommittee also heard concerns about access to providers, the uncertain cost of premiums and subsidy calculations and security in the online sign-up process.

“Yeah, well, maybe we need a delay to figure it all out,” grumbled one Republican committee member.