Today I attended the Utah Health Forum. It was very interesting. The state of Utah feels that health reform should happen at the individual state level. The almost 2,000 page health reform bill (which contains virtually zero cost containment efforts, by the way) will shift financial burdens onto the States via expansion of Medicaid (which is funded partially with Federal funds and partly with State funds) and also introduces 111 new programs with unknown financial ramifications for States.
They have also unveiled the first small business insurance exchange of its kind called the Utah Health Exchange. It works pretty slick. Small businesses enroll their employees into a web portal where they can choose one of 66 plans from 3 insurance carriers. A voluntary directed benefit (employer contributed monthly dollar amount) from employers to their employees helps offset employee costs. This may be a model for the proposed health exchanges in the health reform debate.
