Deal signs health compact bill into law

By Aaron Gould Sheinin and Carrie Teegardin

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia could join with other states to try to assert control over health policy under legislation Gov. Nathan Deal signed into law Wednesday.

Deal signed House Bill 461, which allows states to work together on health care through a legal compact -- a measure that could make it possible for them to avoid implementation of the federal health care law. But, since any compact requires congressional approval, many see Georgia's move as largely symbolic.

“Georgia is the first state to have this health care compact legislation signed into law," Deal said in a statement sent to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "A large majority of Georgians believe that we here are better equipped to manage our state’s health care needs than a one-size-fits-all plan under ‘Obamacare.' "

Similar measures have been introduced in 12 states. Arizona is the only other state, though, that has had a compact bill win approval in both chambers of its legislature.

While Georgia lawmakers embraced the compact legislation, they never took a floor vote on a bill to begin planning for a Georgia-run insurance exchange. The federal health care law calls for every state to have an exchange -- a new marketplace where individuals and small businesses could shop for health coverage and gain access to subsidies. The federal law requires most Americans to have health insurance starting in 2014.

Deal sought a bill to begin planning for an exchange, since the alternative is an exchange that would be designed and run by the Obama administration. The bill had wide support from health care providers, the insurance industry and consumer advocates. But Deal pulled the bill off the agenda this year after tea party activists raised last-minute objections to it.

Debbie Dooley, co-coordinator of the Georgia Tea Party Patriots, praised Deal for signing the compact bill.

Dooley said the bill could become more than a symbolic gesture. "You don't know," she said. "We could have great success getting Congress to pass it. We know it would pass the House."

Deal said the compact idea is part of the state's effort to find "creative, free-market solutions to our health care challenges."

"There are positive alternatives to ‘Obamacare,' and we will continue to bring these ideas to the forefront for debate across this nation," he said.

While a compact would have to be approved by the House and Senate, experts disagree on whether it must be approved by the president.

Cindy Zeldin, executive director of Georgians for a Healthy Future, a nonprofit that generally supports overhauling the health care system and backed the federal law, said the new state law will have no practical impact because it won’t be approved by Washington.

“I think it is odd that the exchange, which would have a huge impact on consumers, was abandoned so easily and this became a priority even though it won’t have any effect on consumers or Georgians at all,” she said.

Deal, in an interview last week, said Republicans several years ago proposed health care exchanges and the bill he pulled this year was "an opportunity to do what the federal government has never been able to do, and that is provide a marketplace for small businesses to pool their employee base and reduce the cost of health insurance."

Deal believes there is still time for that to be done but that "it's going to take an education" for opponents to see the benefits.

State insurance exchanges would open for business in 2014. But states must have their marketplaces ready to go in 2013, which would require the General Assembly to pass legislation to create an exchange next year.