Economic Development Committee Gets Briefing On Perdue Health Insurance Plan

By Dick Pettys
InsiderAdvantage Georgia

(8/10/07) The Perdue administration briefed a legislative committee Thursday on the governor’s newly-debuted plan to help small businesses provide health coverage for uninsured workers. This time it used a high-level government executive, Community Health Commissioner Rhonda Medows, to spread the word about the initiative.

Earlier this week, there was some criticism from key legislators that they were not adequately briefed - or were briefed by junior-level staffers - before Perdue announced the initiative during a news conference on Tuesday.

But still there was criticism about the governor's advance briefing procedures during Thursday's meeting of the joint House-Senate Economic Development and Tourism Committee.

Rep. Allen Freeman, R-Macon, told Medows during the session, “I do just want to make a point, and I’m sure it’ll get downstairs pretty quick. But letting the media know about it before you let this group have some input - this is the first I’ve heard about it ... it’s a little frustrating.”

She did not respond.

The governor’s office did brief a number of people or their staffs before the announcement, including House Speaker Glenn Richardson, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and others.

But a spokeswoman for Richardson, Clelia Davis, expressed the dissatisfaction this way: “We do not consider a phone call 30 minutes before an announcement from a junior- or senior-level staffer a briefing.”

Medows, meanwhile, described the program as a work in progress and said, “We need to get you all briefed-up on it and get your input.”

She said the state’s investment of $20 million would help launch a $182 million program for up to 30,000 workers who now lack insurance. “It’s a first step,” she said.

Asked how it differs from broader programs, such as those in Massachusetts and California, Amy Loy, the governor’s new health policy advisor, said the governor’s plan relies on the free market. “That’s a major distinction,” she said.

Critics already have said they view it as a new entitlement program, a label Perdue rejects.

The governor said the state can either pay health care costs of the uninsured at the back end by picking up the cost of their emergency room visits or help them acquire insurance that will enable them to get preventive care.

The program is voluntary.

Asked by Sen. Chip Pearson, R-Dawsonville, if the governor envisions a time when the program will be self-supporting and the state can get out of it, Medows said: “Actually, I think that ... share is something that can be replaced later on. We just haven’t gotten that far along in the planning. This is literally a work in progress, and I think that most of us would enjoy having someone else pick up that tab other than government ... but for right now we are the lead.”

Here is a link to our earlier story on the initiative and the initial reaction to it.