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Utah tops nation in health care ownership
PRI in the News
By: Scott Schulte
6.14.2007
Davis County Clipper (UT), June 14, 2007
FRUIT HEIGHTS — Utah is the top state in the country when it comes to states that allow citizens ownership over their healthcare decisions.
A study called the U.S. Index of Health Ownership, which was conducted by the Pacific Research Institute in California, reports Utah leading in the area of health care ownership due to the lightly regulated private insurance market and due to the fact that the state’s regulatory environment for providers favors competition.
The index is a way to measure the degree by which people “own” the health care in their state.
“I think this is important because we often feel like we don’t have control over health care,” said Sarah Smith of Fruit Heights. “I guess looking at this report we are in better shape than other places in the country.”
Smith doesn’t see the fact that Utah ranks first as a great sign, though.
“I still think we are pushed around too often by insurance companies.”
The Index is the first effort to measure the degree to which individuals, be they patients, health professionals, entrepreneurs, or taxpayers, “own” the health care in their states.
“The lack of health ownership is a real problem,” said John R. Graham, director of Health Care Studies at PRI and author of the new Index.
“Almost half of the country's health care spending is in the hands of the government, instead of patients themselves. The other half is governed by regulations inflicted upon doctors, insurance companies and patients.”
The Index uses 24 variables to quantify how state laws and regulations affect the liberty of citizens involved in state government health plans (primarily Medicaid), the private health-insurance market, and the provision of medical services.
It also assesses the effect of medical tort on people’s freedom to engage health services.
Utah, Nebraska, Delaware, North Dakota, and Alabama finished in the top five of states that allow their citizens the highest degree of health ownership.
Utah leads the pack, primarily because of a lightly regulated private insurance market. Also, the state’s regulatory environment for providers favors competition.
New York, Vermont, New Jersey, North Carolina and Maine rounded out the bottom five, as the states in which the government has taken the most undue control of health care from its citizens.
The report said New York suffers from government health-care programs that are out of control, a “grossly over regulated private-insurance market,” and almost completely uncompetitive provider markets.
“The Index will give concerned citizens a good basis to demand from their politicians market-oriented reforms that will result in more health ownership for them and their children, and freedom from government control of their health choices,” said Graham.
sschulte@davisclipper.com
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