H-3356.3          _______________________________________________

                                  HOUSE BILL 2607

                  _______________________________________________

State of Washington              54th Legislature             1996 Regular Session

By Representatives Dyer, L. Thomas, D. Sommers, Cairnes, Pelesky, Huff, Beeksma, Smith, B. Thomas, Fuhrman, Backlund, Campbell and Hymes

Read first time 01/15/96.  Referred to Committee on Health Care.

Establishing a study utilizing vouchers for basic health plan enrollees.

     AN ACT Relating to a study utilizing vouchers for basic health plan enrollees; creating new sections; and providing an expiration date.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1.  The legislature recognizes that managed care systems are not the only medical financing system capable of reducing health care costs.  Health care savings accounts are another method of reducing health care costs and enable patients to maintain the high level of choice and decision making of fee-for-service medicine.  As the legislature awaits the arrival of health care savings accounts in the private sector, the legislature finds it appropriate to implement a study that will determine the effectiveness of health care savings account principles in the basic health plan.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2.  (1) The administrator of the basic health plan shall conduct a study to compare two similar groups of subsidized enrollees in the basic health plan.  The experimental group must receive health care vouchers that are redeemable by providers for health care services on a fee-for-service basis.  The control group must continue to receive their health care through managed care systems.

     (2) The study must meet the following guidelines:

     (a) The experimental group must contain at least two thousand five hundred enrollees;

     (b) The study must run for twenty-four months;

     (c) Each enrollee in the experimental group must be provided with health care vouchers that can be redeemed by a health care provider on a fee-for-service basis;

     (d) The enrollees in the experimental group must be allowed to receive health care from any licensed health care provider licensed under Washington law.  However, only the health care services that are permitted under the basic health plan policies shall be allowed to accept the vouchers; and

     (e) The enrollees in the experimental group must receive vouchers in the amount it costs the state to have a similar enrollee under the basic health plan for twenty-four months.  If the enrollee spends less than the amount of the voucher, the enrollee is entitled to all of the remaining money, in cash, at the end of the twenty-four-month period.

     (3) The administrator of the basic health plan shall report annually to the legislature on the study beginning September 1, 1996.  The first report shall present the legislature with a comprehensive design for the study.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 3.  This act shall expire December 31, 1999.

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