Doctor tries to heal insurance crisis
By Jane Erikson
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Trauma surgeon Dr. Steve Neeleman spends six nights a month at University Medical Center, sewing up gunshot wounds and repairing bodies broken in rush-hour collisions.
The rest of the week he deals with what he deems a nationwide emergency: year after year of double-digit increases in the cost of health insurance, which make quality health care unaffordable for growing numbers of Americans.
"I love being a doctor and I love helping people," Neeleman said. "But it's a real struggle for me to see so many people who are struggling to get by without good health care coverage. Our system is just really broken."
A young company called HealthEquity is Neeleman's attempt to deal with the crisis.
HealthEquity offers a high-deductible major medical policy combined with a tax-favored health savings account to pay for routine medical services.
Enrollees deposit tax-exempt money into the account and spend it as they need to on doctor visits, prescription drugs, lab tests, dental and vision care, health-related travel, acupuncture and so on.
Any funds left over at the end of the year can be carried over to the next, and the whole account can be saved for retirement.
Neeleman started Health-
Equity about a year ago, and expects to have 100 people enrolled by the end of this year.
His company got a boost earlier this month when President Bush signed into law the Medicare reform bill, which stipulates that health savings accounts be available to all working adults under 65, the age of Medicare eligibility. Previously, such accounts were available only to small-business employees and the self-employed.
"Every American should have health insurance, and we should help them be able to afford it," Neeleman said. "This is the way to do that."
Neeleman knew when he was 8 years old that he wanted to be a doctor, he said. But before he became a doctor, he worked as Salt Lake City airport manager for Morris Air, of which his brother, David Neeleman, was president.
Southwest Airlines purchased Morris for about $100 million in 1993. Steve Neeleman started medical school the following year. His brother is now CEO of JetBlue Airways, and one of several investors in HealthEquity.
Neeleman likes health savings accounts because they place control - and responsibility - with patients and doctors.
Over the past 20 years, as managed care plans have focused on cost controls, patients and doctors have had to forfeit much of their decision-making to the plans, Neeleman said. People have paid increasingly higher premiums and co-pays for everything from heart surgery to doctor visits.
"The better way to do it is to not have people buy insurance for high-probability events like routine physicals and monthly medications," Neeleman said. "The minute you send that money off to someone else you're going to be on the short end of the stick. You are paying their administrative costs."
HealthEquity offers major medical policies through two carriers, Starmark and American Community Mutual.
Because families spend, on average, $800 a month on "preferred provider" plans - now more popular than HMOs - HealthEquity charges about $400 a month for a major medical family policy while encouraging families to put another $400 a month into their health savings accounts.
HealthEquity members also are covered by a line of credit that kicks in when people are still under their deductible but don't have enough in their savings account to cover a major medical expense. The member uses HealthEquity savings to pay off the line of credit.
Insurance broker Hank Peck, of Clements & Peck, said HealthEquity will likely see its membership grow as people become more familiar with health savings accounts.
"Health savings accounts will catch on," Peck predicted. "The more demand there is from employers, the more insurance companies will come on board."
* Contact reporter Jane Erikson at 573-4118 or at jerikson@azstarnet.com. |
