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COPYRIGHT 2003 Thomson Financial Inc.
Look for the term "consumer-directed health plan" to morph into "consumer-choice health plan" in the near future.
The language shift, recommended to the Health Insurance Association of America by Republican pollster Bill McInturff based on recent survey evidence, could be part of a new push by insurers to encourage widespread adoption of high-deductible, individually owned, tax-preferred, cash-based portable health-coverage vehicles before it's too late.
What does "too late" mean? To insurers as well as to many Republicans it means this: Get consumers effectively involved in stemming monster year-to-year health-care spending increases, or end up with a single-payer national health program.
"I believe that we're on the verge of socializing health care," Rep. Jim DeMint (R-SC) said at a Sept. 9 HIAA forum where McInturff's results were released. "If we don't restructure soon, we're going to have one payer for everybody." On recent visits to doctors and hospitals, DeMint found that many are "very close to throwing in the towel and asking the government to do it," he said.
Nevertheless, "solutions are sprouting up all around us," said DeMint. The Bush administration and congressional Republicans are doing as much as they can to ease the way by expanding eligibility for the various health-care cash accounts that have been created over the past several years and liberalizing rules for their use, he said.
But government officials can do only so much without demonstrated constituent will, and insurance companies must get more involved, DeMint said. Some in the industry may worry that, if...
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