clipped from idahobusinessreview.com

Health industry leaders watch, wait as reform unfolds

As the director of PacificSource Health Plans in Boise, Dave Self hears a lot of questions about the health reform passed by Congress in March and now making its way into public policy.

“Employers almost universally, whether they support it or do not, are very concerned about the cost,” Self said. “And nobody can predict exactly what that looks like yet. As you move forward to 2014, and you start peeling back all of the prohibitions, and increasing maximums of annual basis and lifetime basis for care, nobody really knows what that cost is.”

“The legislation as it exists today, if not modified in any way, will ultimately result in increased cost to individual consumers,” he said.

It’s clear reform will bring more patients into physician offices. That’s what happened in Massachusetts when 2006 health reform made care available to many previously uninsured residents.