I think we need reform. However, I didn’t like the process of the majority ramming through its approach – I know that they can, but that doesn’t make it right when either side does it (that is why I am an independent). There were other ways to tackle this issue in my view: one approach would have been to break the bill up into pieces. More could have done about defensive medicine (i.e. malpractice costs).

But on the other hand, I know they did alot of good work on improving competition in the market, reducing administrative costs, and getting people covered so that they don’t use the emergency rooms for care (this ends up costing us all either way).

One piece that I think was missing is forcing people to take responsibility for their own health, and rewarding good health and prevention. Maybe there was something done on that and I just didn’t hear much about it. I did read estimates of the overall costs associated with preventable health conditions like obesity and some times diabetes. Was there more that could be done on that front? We should continue to look at that.

The thing I worry about from the state’s perspective (which is my job) is that the state’s share of medicaid costs continues to go up because of the increased caseload. We frankly are having a really hard time paying our share (which is half), but I do understand that the more people that are covered the less people are using emergency rooms for a sore throat…None of these costs are sustainable no matter how we look at. From the state’s perspective, the fed’s, the corporation’s, or the individual’s. I don’t know to what extent this bill will actually accomplish the goal of stabilizing costs, but it is a start and we needed to have the debate.

The current system is not working. I hear from at least one family a week that is going under financially because of escalating premiums or they don’t have insurance at all. So, being a legislator, I know that nothing we pass is ever permanent – it always gets changed the next year. I imagine that this will happen in this case.