Making the Pitch for Health Insurance

Today is my annual trip to the General Assembly Joint Finance Committee to discuss the Insurance Department budget for the upcoming fiscal year. My hearings have been fairly uneventful, since the first thing I did when I arrived in 2005 was to tell the committee that I was going to run the department without a dime of taxpayer money (we are now funded entirely by surcharges and fees imposed on national insurance companies). They like that.

What I am going to emphasize today, though, is that even in a very tight budget year, the state must seriously consider funding the health insurance purchasing pool proposal that Senator Blevins, Representative Hall-Long, and I have pending before the General Assembly. In fact, here is a blog-readers-only, exclusive preview of what I will say about that in my testimony:

While we are not asking for any additional money for our department, I do want to take the opportunity to ask for one appropriation of funds should they become available. As you all know, I have been asking the General Assembly for three years now to create a health insurance pool to provide affordable health insurance to the underinsured and uninsured in our state. As you also know, the design of the pool requires a state subsidy in order to make it work.

As I am up and down the state every day, there is no issue I hear about more than health insurance – from families or from businesses. I’m sure you hear it, too. While a period of economic downturn may not be the easiest time for you to consider spending money on a new program, it is exactly the time when the need for more affordable health coverage will become greater. I urge you to consider funding the health insurance pool should revenues improve. It would be a giant leap forward for Delaware and, I believe, would make Delaware a model for the rest of the country.

We are getting ready to start putting the Denn volunteers to work on the campaign trail, if you are willing to start putting in some time to make this state a better place for its kids, drop me a note at mattdenn@hotmail.com.