West Virginia Agents Balk At Health Insurance Exchange

With the Legislature’s minority Republicans already opposing the pending bill, West Virginia’s independent insurance agents are wary of this session’s bid to create a state-run health insurance exchange.

The House Judiciary Committee could take up the Senate-passed measure this week. The agents’ lobbyist, Gray Marion, echoes GOP arguments that Capitol Hill repeal efforts or court challenges could derail the federal health care overhaul and its requirement that each state host an exchange.

“We absolutely do support the concept that West Virginia develop its own exchange — if we’re mandated by the federal government,” Marion said Friday. “But absent that mandate, our position is ‘Well, now, not so fast here. Let’s take a hard look at this.”‘

Supporters of the pending measure include Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield West Virginia, the state’s largest private insurer, industry giant United Healthcare and the state’s HMO associations. Their representatives were among two dozen who spoke in favor of the bill at a House Judiciary hearing last week. Others included health care providers, AARP, the state Council of Churches, the Wheeling-Charleston Roman Catholic Diocese and advocates for people with disabilities.

Federal funding can be crucial, said Perry Bryant, executive director of West Virginians For Affordable Health Care. Promised tax credits, for instance, would help individuals pay their policy premiums. But the benefits of a state-run system go beyond that, Bryant said.

“The exchange has the potential to be the HR department for the local restaurant whose owner is pedaling as fast as he can to keep his business going and wants to provide health benefits to his workers,” Bryant said.

Exchanges aim to allow individuals and small businesses to pool their buying power when choosing coverage plans from private insurers. The federal health care overhaul calls on each state to host one, though it allows them to choose whether to run their own or leave theirs in federal hands.

Just as online services like Expedia, Orbitz and Priceline have affected travel agencies, exchanges may similarly impact independent agents. Marion said his group is concerned about the role it would play.

“The profession is in limbo, the way the bill is worded,” he said. “We just want some confirmation that health insurance agents are going to continue to be able to write insurance in this state and can write insurance provided in those exchanges.”

Bryant said the bill gives agents a hand in overseeing an exchange through its governing board. He said he supports a possible amendment that would stagger the terms of the board’s members, but would ensure the agents’ representative serves a full four-year term.

“They’re being treated preferentially,” Bryant said. “They should recognize that, and appreciate that.”

Marion also notes that he and his group were part of the statewide public hearings, public comment period and stakeholder meetings that preceded the bill’s introduction this session. But West Virginia Insurance Commissioner Jane Cline and her office headed that effort, not lawmakers, he said.

“The state Legislature is supposed to be the source of public policy in this state,” Marion said. “It has not had any sort of substantive, extended discussion on whether or not such an exchange is an appropriate activity for the state. Until it does, I don’t think we need to be saddling ourselves with a mechanism that, if the federal funding goes away, is going to be unreal expensive.”

Bryant dismissed that argument.

“The office of the insurance commissioner has really gone out of its way to make this a transparent process,” Bryant said. “This is the most transparent public policy I’ve seen developed at the state level in 30 years.”

Topics Agencies Virginia West Virginia