Imagine dictating how your health insurer spends its money.
Would you demand better doctors, cheaper preventive care or a share of the company’s profits?
It will soon be a possibility in Utah, where a powerhouse group of industry leaders, fueled by an $85.4 million federal loan, are starting a non-profit, consumer-driven health insurance company that by this time next year will be luring customers with low rates and the promise of better care.
Aarches Community Health Care, a health co-op, or "Consumer Operated and Oriented Health Plan," is a new breed of insurer championed by a bipartisan group in Congress as a private-market alternative to the hotly debated public option, or government-run health plan.
Financed with start-up loans under a little-known provision of the Affordable Care Act, health co-ops function like rural electric or dairy co-ops, providing an under-produced good or service — in this case, affordable health coverage. Because it’s a nonprofit, Aarches won’t be beholden to shareholders and is supposed to use year-end surpluses to lower premiums or boost benefits.
But Aarches’ selling point, and true cost advantage, comes from changing how doctors are paid and, subsequently, how they deliver care, said Baker. It’s what drew the 70-year-old founder of Utah’s Public Employee Health Plan out of retirement.
"I’ve been pushing payment reform since the early ‘90s. To get involved in a company that can actually do something about it, that’s what I’m looking for." Salt Lake Tribune
