The Columbus Dispatch...
Taylor rips U.S. health-care law
Lieutenant governor sees Ohio paying
By Ben Geier

Tuesday, July 12, 2011 

The health-care law passed by Congress last year will hurt Ohio consumers, Lt. Governor Mary Taylor told the Kiwanis Club of Columbus at its weekly meeting yesterday. 

Taylor said that Ohio’s health-care industry is healthy, and she doesn’t want that to change. 

“We are concerned that the advantages that we see here in Ohio, those lower premiums, are going to go away,” she said. 

In recent weeks, Taylor has come out strongly against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, remarking that it will worsen rather than solve the nation’s health-care problems. 

“I think that’s a great title,” she said, “if it actually did protect patients or make health care more affordable.” 

Taylor didn’t specifically discuss the Ohio Health Care Freedom Amendment, which was submitted last week as a potential statewide ballot issue. If adopted, the amendment would nullify - in Ohio - the mandate that all citizens purchase health care. That provision would likely face a legal challenge. 

In an interview after her speech, Taylor - who is also the head of the Ohio Department of Insurance - said she wasn’t sure how the amendment might affect the state, saying the legal research hadn’t been done yet. 

Taylor was more concerned about how the federal health-care law could affect Ohio’s health-care industry in general. 

She said some of the other mandates in the bill could hurt the market for insurance in Ohio. For instance, she said, requiring small businesses with at least 50 employees to provide insurance for workers could backfire. 

“It could potentially be a disincentive to that small employer to grow,” she said. 

Taylor said she thinks the law will hurt insurance providers’ ability to accurately charge consumers. 

Currently, Ohio insurance companies can use many factors to set premiums. The federal law, Taylor said, brings that number down to just four. What this does, she said, is “spread the risk” to all health-care consumers and “(reduce) flexibility.” 

Before getting into health care, Taylor discussed the fine balance of regulating business and allowing economic growth. 

She said that while “regulations are necessary,” too much regulation of businesses “prevents them from creating jobs.” 

Taylor cited a regulation that forced companies to purchase items at retail rates, rather than wholesale. And a company in Ohio that sold premade sauces and soups to restaurants was forced to purchase individual bottles of wine to pour into huge vats. This, Taylor said, was an unnecessary regulation that had been removed. 

Read it at the Columbus Dispatch