N.C. Health Insurance Innovations Commission to be housed at UNC Charlotte

One of the last bills passed by the North Carolina General Assembly in their recently-concluded session aims to solve the health-insurance crisis in North Carolina.

The Belk College of Business Administration at UNC Charlotte will coordinate activities for the new North Carolina Health Insurance Innovations Commission (HIIC), established to address two key issues: access to affordable health insurance for the state's small businesses, and management of high cost/high frequency medical conditions.

Commission members, who will be appointed by the General Assembly upon recommendation of the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, will include physicians, small business owners, insurance brokers, advocates for the uninsured and representatives of nurses, health insurers and hospitals.

Claude Lilly, dean of the Belk College of Business, will work closely with Rep. Connie Wilson (R-Mecklenburg), Sen. David Hoyle (D-Gaston), and Ches Gwinn, founder and president of Metrolina Health Initiative (MHI), assisting in the selection and appointment of HIIC members and overseeing administration of the Commission.

In addition to serving as Dean of the Belk College, Lilly is the James J. Harris Chair of Risk Management and Insurance at UNC Charlotte and is a nationally-recognized expert in insurance issues.

Gwinn, a managing consultant at the human-resources consulting firm Hewitt Associates, created the MHI to bring together the various parties involved in medical care to discuss ways to lower costs and improve access to health insurance.

"Instead of one sector 'throwing stones' at another, the MHI provided an opportunity for Charlotte's key healthcare players to first learn from each other and then define the problems and solutions," Gwinn said. "The HIIC will allow us to continue this dialogue on a statewide basis."

The Belk College will provide meeting space, professional services and support staff for the HIIC, and will coordinate the Commission's fundraising from government and private sources.

The bill that created the HIIC, sponsored in the General Assembly by Rep. Wilson and Sen. Hoyle, began as a study conducted by Gwinn and the MHI for the Duke Endowment. The MHI study identified critical trends that have led to the health care insurance crisis in North Carolina:

• More than 50 percent of the statewide workforce is employed by small businesses.
• More than 1.1 million North Carolinians are not covered by health insurance.
• More than 60 percent of uninsured persons either own or work for a small business, or are the dependent of a small business owner or employee.
• Sixteen health insurance carriers left the North Carolina small group health coverage market in 2001, and virtually no insurers have entered that market in the past two years.
• Thirty percent of North Carolina small businesses offer health insurance coverage to employees, versus 65 percent nationally.
• High cost, high-frequency medical conditions result in a disproportionate percentage of insurance claims, driving up costs for the general insured population.

"Health care and affordable insurance coverage are two of the top issues affecting our state," Lilly said. "The Belk College is proud to be involved with the Commission. Together, we will work to improve both the physical well-being of North Carolina's citizens and the financial well-being of the state's small businesses."

The HIIC will work to collect data and develop pilot programs that may include regulatory reform of the insurance industry; consumer-education programs for small business owners and insurance consumers; and disease-management initiatives. The commission also will support local efforts to create community education programs that reinforce the health insurance carriers' efforts.

"The General Assembly is putting a lot of trust into this commission," Rep. Wilson said, "to develop the innovative high quality, low cost health insurance products that North Carolina small businesses so desperately need."

For full text of the ratified bill (H1463), visit http://www.ncleg.net/html2003/bills/CurrentVersion/House/Hbil1463.full.html.