Health Care Experiments

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The DLC just sent out an email highlighting some of the recent healthcare initiatives being proposed in Montana, the sort of thing that could possibly serve as a model for the nation at large:

Montana’s new small-business program… will provide direct financial assistance for health care insurance premiums to offset the high insurance costs facing smaller businesses and the large number of low-wage workers in smaller firms. The assistance will be targeted at very small businesses (under 10 employees) and will be more generous for low to moderate-income employees.

These businesses will be able to purchase the coverage through a purchasing pool that can negotiate a lower price with insurance companies, a proposal advanced by Governor Brian Schweitzer. Insurance companies may be willing to offer a lower price because the premium assistance will make coverage affordable to most employees, and in turn, will help solve one big problem in today’s small group insurance market: the tendency of small businesses to buy insurance when they have workers who are sicker and need the coverage. Insurance companies charge extra when they are likely to enroll sicker workers….

In Montana’s purchasing pool, employees and dependents who are eligible for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program will be automatically enrolled as part of their job-based coverage in order to maximize federally matched funding.

Finally, Montana will offer a tax credit to small businesses who currently provide coverage but who are struggling to afford it. This tax credit will send those businesses an important message to keep up the good work.

Now I have doubts that some of these proposals will work, especially that purchasing pool. (Studies have shown that similar programs, known as Association Health Plans, either have a very small impact on covering the uninsured or, paradoxically, increase the number of uninsured. Read this for the gory details.) Nevertheless, this is precisely the sort of thing that should be tried out on a state level, to see what works and what doesn’t, so that when this current batch of Republicans get kicked out of office and we can finally get serious about health care reform, we have some models to examine. Another “laboratory of health care” to watch will be Gov. Christina Gregoire’s proposal in Washington to restrain costs by eliminating waste. Again, I’m skeptical that in practice you can really eke that many health savings out of “information technology,” but why not give it a shot?

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate