On May 15, Chaffee County Public Health launched its county-wide Access to Healthcare survey in collaboration with the League of Women Voters of Chaffee County.
Americans who receive health insurance through their jobs generally have little flexibility: 86 percent of employers in the country offer only one plan. This system of “defined benefits” has worked well for expanding group coverage, but severely limits options for individuals, and has not kept costs from skyrocketing. Recipients of employer-sponsored health insurance also lose their current coverage when they leave or switch jobs. In Utah, state policymakers have taken a different approach, giving businesses and their workers the option of “defined contribution” health benefits where participating workers choose coverage from a wide variety of plans offered by competing insurers through Utah’s health insurance exchange. Utah’s state leaders are innovators who are doing precisely what they should be doing using their authority to resist concentrated power in Washington, and working to provide more and better choices for their citizens.