Public Employee Insurance May Blow Through Tax Cap

New Jersey has a new cap on property taxes. But there’s a big loophole, which includes health insurance for government employees.

Medical-Tort Law: Ranking the States

How much do a state’s laws governing medical malpractice and other torts relevant to health care affect the availability of care?  Plenty!

Lawrence J. McQuillan’s & Hovannes Abramyan’s 2010 edition of the U.S. Tort Liability Index, which has a number of measurements included in the U.S. Index of Health Ownership, ranks states according to 42 variables.

Eight of the measurements in the U.S. Tort Liability Index are relevant to the U.S Index of Health Ownership: One output and seven inputs. The previous edition of the U.S Index of Health Ownership included six measurements of medical tort, but McQuillan & Abramyan have discovered more variables for their 2010 edition of the Tort Liability Index, allowing more detailed measurement.

As a partial update of the U.S. Index of Health Ownership, this brief analysis calculates a medical-tort index from a simple average of the eight relevant variables.  Mississippi, Nevada, Michigan, Colorado, and Louisiana lead the pack; while Vermont, Rhode Island, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Iowa bring up the rear. Even the leaders, however, lag in some measurements.

Mississippi, for example, leads on procedural rules: Pre-trial screening or arbitration and conditions on the use of expert witnesses. However, it does not limit lawyers’ ability to abuse their privilege by limiting their share of awards. Colorado and Louisiana also fail to impose limits. Unfortunately, the laggards do not show a similar pattern: The bottom five states perform poorly in all eight measurements.

Reducing the burden of medical tort is critical to increasing Americans’ health ownership and reducing medical costs that curtail our access to care. Some progress is evident, but states aiming to improve their medical-tort laws still have a long way to go.

New Jersey State Senator Steps in It; Calls for “Nullification”

In a statement about a proposed constitutional amendment, New Jersey Sen. Michael Doherty said, “This amendment, if ratified by the voters of this state, will nullify any law that mandates health coverage within New Jersey’s borders.”

That prompted Sen. Jim Whelan to question the concept of nullification, concluding, “You learn about this in sophomore year of high school.”

But as Doherty points out, states have in recent years had some success in challenging federal law, notably, in making provisions for the medical use of marijuana, contrary to federal drug law.

Whelan offered up this reply: “The federal government has made it clear it is not enforcing the law against medical marijuana users or suppliers.” Well, that’s true, though that’s not necessarily a strong rejoinder to those legislators who would enact something like the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act. Indeed, it gives them comfort. For, I suspect, the non-enforcement of marijuana laws is at least a partial response to a state-by-state campaign to challenge federal law.

New Jersey Panel Tells Christie: Don’t Join Suit

Will New Jersey support a multi-state lawsuit against various provisions of ObamaCare? Not if a a majority of the members on Senate committee has its way.

The Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee approved a resolution Monday urging Governor Christie not to join 20 other states in a lawsuit against the new federal health care law.

Next up for the resolution: The full Senate.

It’s New Jersey, as I Recall

One of the more interesting and perhaps quixotic responses to the passage of the health “reform” bill is an effort in New Jersey to recall Sen. Robert Menendez, a Democrat. John Armor, writing at The American Thinker, argues that such an act would be constitutional.

New Jersey and the Attorneys General

Will New Jersey join the list of states whose attorney general files suit against the federal health “reform” law? A New Jersey resident offers a perspective.

Guaranteed Issue, Community Rating Lead to High Premiums

Reason Magazine takes a look at the dismal track record of state “reform” efforts to date. It cites New York as “exhibit A” for its guaranteed issue and community rating provisions. It says, “In 1994 just under 752,000 individuals were enrolled in individual insurance plans, about 4.7%  of the nonelderly population. This put New York roughly in line with the rest of the U.S. Today that figure has dropped to just 0.2%. By contrast, between 1994 and 2007 the total number of people insured in the individual market across the U.S. rose from 4.5% to 5.5%.”

It adds Washington state as another example.”In 1996 similar reforms in Washington state preceded massive premium spikes in the individual market. Some premiums increased as much as 78% in the first three years of the reforms-10 times the rate of medical inflation.” And it cites a Health Affairs study as saying, “in addition to Washington and New York, the individual insurance markets in Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Vermont “deteriorated” after the enactment of guaranteed issue.”

It also notes about Massachusetts that, “Health insurance premiums in the Bay State have risen significantly faster than the national average, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit health foundation. At an average of $13,788, the state’s family plans are now the nation’s most expensive.”

From Health “Reform” To Government Retiree Bailout

The behind-closed-doors squabble over the so-called “Cadillac” tax on high-cost health benefits is that it’s really about bailing out public-sector retiree health benefits, especially at the state and local level. Today’s New York Times reports that the tax won’t hit these folks until 2018. If I were a betting man I’d guess that that date will be pushed out even farther before this deal sees the light of day.

The tax is now going to hit plans that cost $8,500 for an individual and $23,000 for a family, which is way higher than the current cost of employer-based health benefits.

Until recently, state and local government employers did not have to report retiree health obligations on their balance sheets like private employers do. Of course, this meant that weak local authorities negotiating with strong union leaders resulted in unfunded liabilities that are unexpected and out of control. A recent study estimated such liabilities to be $558 billion nationwide, although the extent of the crisis varies a lot between states. There are no prizes for guessing that New York, New Jersey, and California fare the worst.

The Congressional Budget Office has yet to score this partial bailout of public-sector retiree benefits, but it will certainly send the (already debunked) pledge of deficit neutrality into the dustbin of history. Unless, of course, they figure out yet another tax to patch the hole in the CBO’s score.

If They Won’t See the Light …

… maybe they’ll feel the heat. Some tea-party activists are targeting Sen. Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey) for recall, presumably in part over his vote for the health “reform” bill.

It’s a long-shot attempt, I suppose, but more unexpected things have happened.

A New Twist on the War on Drugs

New Jersey officials asked residents to drop off unused prescription drugs for incineration. They got an estimated 3.5 million pills.

The stated reason for “Operation Medicine Cabinet”: It’s for the children. “For a majority of young people — especially first-time users — the most common way to find those pills is to hit their parents’ bathroom. ‘It is our belief that these are a real gateway drugs,’ Angelo M. Valente, executive director of the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey.”

At least the DEA didn’t conduct random bathroom searches, looking for Vicodin pills from 2003.