Bredesen finding answers, but no permanent solutions
The soaring costs of health care must be considered one of the top priorities — if not the top priority — in this presidential election.
All across the United States, the price of prescriptions are climbing, insurance deductibles are rising, and the out-of-pocket expenses Americans are paying for health care is at all-time highs.
Tennesseans have been well aware of this problem for years, thanks in part to the money pit known as TennCare. Costs for the state-funded health insurance have been spiraling out of control almost since the program’s inception.
Now Gov. Phil Bredesen is living up to campaign promises and he’s beginning to fight back. He’s rolling up his sleeves and attacking TennCare where it really hurts – at its funding.
In a proposal announced yesterday and covered in a story on page 5-A of today’s edition, Bredesen wants to cut benefits to a third of TennCare’s enrollees, saving the state $2.5 billion over the next four years.
Bredesen says the changes are essential to keep TennCare afloat. Without slashing the budget, the state’s program to aid 1.3 million of Tennessee’s poor, disabled and uninsured would surely sink. TennCare alone is already consuming over 25 percent of the state’s budget.
Bredesen’s proposal would leave TennCare benefits unchanged to 65 percent of its recipients – most importantly pregnant women and children. The other 35 percent of the TennCare enrollees would have benefits reduced.
While Bredesen is doing just about all one man can do to cut costs and run the state responsibly, the overwhelming question for him as a former health care executive and to the rest of our nation’s leaders is this: What can be done to put a speed bump in front of the racing costs of health care?
If cutting benefits is the only way to reduce costs, it greatly diminishes the value of health insurance in the first place.