I am pleased to see that Brian Collins and I agree that the Oregon Health Insurance Exchange is an essential part of health reform.
Unfortunately, I disagree with Collins’ analysis that the state and federal laws governing the exchange adequately protect the exchange from the risk of “adverse selection.” While some provisions of those laws mitigate the risk as he points out, they do not go far enough to protect the exchange.
The Oregon Center for Public Policy (OCPP) examined the strengths and limitations of these provisions in detail in the report, Inoculating Oregon’s Health Exchange Against Adverse Selection, http://www.www.ocpp.org/2011/09/08/iss20110908-Inoculating-Oregons-Health-Exchange/.
Fortunately, as the OCPP report makes clear, there are steps that policymakers can take to further protect the exchange so that it succeeds in its important mission to provide high quality coverage to Oregonians at affordable rates. That’s a goal all Oregonians, not just Brian Collins and I, should be able to get behind.
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