State Health Reform

Reveille may be the bugle call that gets our military up in the morning; but all it takes is a few good state legislators to get us humming a tune about employer-provided health benefits in the wee hours of the morning. That was our song last Friday at 8:00 am Central Time, when we welcomed an impressive crowd at the National Conference of State Legislatures 2008 Legislative Summit in New Orleans. It is amazing how regular people will nod along to a health economics lecture even in New Orleans if you just set it to the right tune.

We explained how American firms' share of health care costs are contributing to their competitive disadvantage in the global marketplace. Like our paper on the same subject outlines, U.S. employers contribute more than twice as much as our top trading partners and are unable, in the short run, to shift costs onto workers or into prices. Accordingly, more employers are being forced to drop health coverage altogether and business support for comprehensive health reform is growing.

Rice-A-Roni may be the San Francisco treat, but health reform has been the topic du jour of late for the Bay City. As the San Francisco Chronicle noted, yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of Healthy San Francisco—the city’s ambitious plan to make health care accessible and affordable to its uninsured residents.

Like a cable car descending Nob Hill, there have been a few bumps along the way—the growing pains health reform—as well as uncertaintity because of a pending decision from the Ninth Circuit regarding the legality of the city’s efforts. Still, the plan is an innovative effort from one of the cities described in a recent Families USA report as being on the front lines of America’s health care crisis.