I live in Virginia Beach, and over the years we've learned a thing or two about preparing for hurricanes. The general philosophy is to prepare as if you think the storm is going to hit head-on even though you hope it turns out to sea. While getting ready for the hurricane can cause some headaches, we are always glad we put in the work if the storm materializes.
The same can be said for the president's health-care law.
The General Assembly's current progress in evaluating a health insurance exchange program as mandated by the law is in no way an endorsement of the law itself. My own hope is that the Supreme Court makes the sensible decision to overrule the individual mandate that is the centerpiece of the program, thereby dismantling one of its most intrusive and unconstitutional provisions. If the court does, we will gladly scrap our plans for an insurance exchange as well, grateful that the health care storm has been averted.
That said, if the health care law does not get overturned by the Supreme Court, a health-care exchange will have to be created in Virginia. As the chairman of the Health Insurance Subcommittee of the Commerce and Labor Committee, I have been working diligently with the other subcommittee members to hear expert testimony, evaluate every aspect of the issue, and determine the most effective course of action for the exchange.
Our preference is that the state legislators, elected to represent Virginians' interests, have control over the structure of this exchange. The other option is for federal bureaucrats to determine the form of our exchange. Regardless of your stance on the law itself, I hope you would agree that if we're going to have an exchange, we don't want the federal government controlling its implementation. I think we can do a far better job of planning and implementing it at the state level than they can.
If we want to be in control of our exchange's structure, we have a lot of ground to cover in both the health-care industry and the state government. If we don't do what's necessary to iron out the details of a feasible, competitive, and fluid marketplace for qualified health insurance policies, we will be doing ourselves and our constituents a huge disservice. In particular, we could find ourselves with breaches in insurance coverage for certain state residents, denied benefits, and an administrative nightmare stemming from insufficient planning and hurried implementation. People's health care could be at risk.
A final reason to start planning the exchange now is to avoid a costly special session of the General Assembly, a likely result if we put off the work until later. As Thomas Jefferson said, "Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today."
Despite the hope I share with many of my fellow legislators that the individual mandate of the health care law will be struck down by the Supreme Court, having a plan if things go awry is our duty to all Virginians. By the time hurricane-force winds start blowing, it's too late to make meaningful preparations. So it is with the health-care exchange. If we are unprepared, we won't have the luxury of looking back and saying, "We didn't see this coming."
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