In an op-ed in today’s Poughkeepsie Journal Kenneth Adams, president and CEO of the Business Council of New York State, Inc, tell the Journal’s readers that we must view health care reform through a “New York Lens”.

“When you listen to the debate about health-care reform in Washington, do you sometimes get the feeling you’ve heard this before? If so, maybe it’s because here in New York we’ve had a lot of these conversations already.

When it comes to the challenges of health care and how to pay for it, New York is ahead of the curve, well past much of the nation in health-care infrastructure, medical education and research, insurance mandates, health-care and insurance taxes, an expansive Medicaid program and taxpayer-supported plans for the uninsured. Far from perfect, our system is extremely expensive compared to most other states. That is why our representatives in Congress have to be sure to view the national health-care debate through a New York lens.

Imagine, for example, a new federal policy applied in a state without insurance mandates or special taxes for charity care or programs for the uninsured.

That same policy applied here, where all those things already exist, could mean new taxes and regulations on top of the programs we already have in place. This will result in added costs, making health insurance in New York even more expensive, and leaving more New Yorkers uninsured.

Beginning with NY

Looking through the New York lens starts with acknowledging where we are as a state before imposing federal reforms to our own health-care system.
According to the United Hospital Fund, New York ranks 25th nationally with about 2.5 million people or 15 percent of New Yorkers under 65 without health care. We can certainly do better, and provide coverage for more of our fellow New Yorkers, but not if federal policies make coverage in New York more expensive. Remember, people don’t have health insurance coverage because it costs too much.

In New York, most people under 65 still get their health-care coverage from an employer - theirs or a family member’s. That’s 59 percent, or almost 10 million people, according to the United Hospital Fund. If businesses are the greatest provider of health-care coverage in the state, shouldn’t we be focusing on bringing costs down so they can continue to play that role? New health-care taxes - federal or state - without reforms to offset increasing costs will only force more New York employers to stop offering insurance to their workers.

New taxes added New York already has the broadest safety net of subsidized health coverage options in the nation. Our public health insurance options - well intended but not all that effective - come at a big cost to businesses and taxpayers. This year alone approximately $800 million in new taxes on health-care and health insurance were enacted as part of the state budget.

Currently, taxes on New Yorkers who voluntarily buy private health coverage total about $4.2 billion per year, up from $3.5 billion. This reflects as much as 10 percent of the cost of health insurance in some areas of New York. If national health-care reform leads to increased taxes for New York’s employers, those new costs must be offset by reforms here at home. We must look for reforms that reduce the high cost of health care in New York, including mandate and tax relief, and more efficient, technologically advanced delivery of health-care services.

The problem of the uninsured is caused by the high and rising cost of health insurance. The core cost of the insurance is driven by the cost of what it gets you - health care. Job one has to be making health insurance more affordable by making health care less expensive. When considering the health-care reform proposal in Washington, our representatives need to remember that you can’t make something more affordable buy making it more expensive.

New York already has the broadest safety net of subsidized health coverage options in the nation. Our public health insurance options - well intended but not all that effective - come at a big cost to businesses and taxpayers. This year alone approximately $800 million in new taxes on health-care and health insurance were enacted as part of the state budget.