Making health insurance accessible: governor's plan is a much-needed first step.

• Author: Gibbons, Shawn
• Position: VIEWPOINT

GOV. MITCH DANIELS announced his health-care insurance initiative for Indiana's poorest residents. As president of the Indiana State Association of Health Underwriters (ISAHU), I believe the governor's plan to increase the tobacco tax and use that revenue to pay for health-care programs and help Indiana's working poor purchase health insurance, is a much-needed first step to increase Hoosiers' overall wellness and reduce the number of uninsured.

ISAHU strongly believes that a public-private partnership is necessary to address the issue of excessive, expensive health care that is affecting all Hoosiers as a result of Indiana's high smoking rate. The state must play a role in reducing the number of smokers in Indiana and its effects on health-care costs that are passed on to all Hoosiers. The governor's plan will do just that.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that for every 1 percent increase in health insurance premiums, 200,000 people lose their employer-based coverage nationally. Consumers who purchase coverage themselves, and who typically pay higher prices, are hit even higher by rising health-care costs. Indiana's Family and Social Services Administration estimates those families with insurance pay an additional $950 per year in higher premiums to cover the cost of caring for the uninsured. Indiana's high smoking rate directly impacts the cost of insurance for everyone.

A second component of the governor's plan includes assisting Indiana's poorest residents to purchase private insurance plans to reduce the number of uninsured in the state. The plan has an incentive for Hoosiers to become better purchasers of health care by allowing Hoosiers to control how their POWER account health-care dollars are best spent.

In correlation to the governor's plan, the state should also enact...