Matthew Glass: Big Government Provides Big Boost With Private Option In Practice

Editor’s note: This guest commentary is written by Matthew C. Glass, President & CEO of Fidelity Insurance Group which has offices in West Memphis, Marion and Hughes, Arkansas. Fidelity was recently named a preferred agency by Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield and is currently the largest producer in the country for the Arkansas Healthcare Independence Program with almost $4 million in sales.

For almost 2 years now we have heard opponents of the Private Option talk about how the government should have no role in providing healthcare to the poor, how the state of Arkansas couldn’t afford to provide healthcare to nearly 250,000 of its citizens, and how the Private Option is nothing more than Obamacare.

How is the Private Option, officially known as the Arkansas Healthcare Independence Program, actually working in Arkansas? What are its participants doing with it and what do doctors think about it now that it’s actually in use?

In the last 9 months, I have personally enrolled more people in the Private Option than any other person in the state of Arkansas. I have enrolled people in nearly every county of the state and have enrolled individuals that were employed full-time and people that I am confident have never worked. I have talked with doctors and hospital administrators from around the state — both before and after the implementation of the Private Option.

Based on my experience, here is what I have concluded: most of the people enrolled in the Private Option are employed just like you and me except at a lower wage and without it the medical system as we know it would collapse in Arkansas. Oh, and doctors love it.

I’d like to use the Delta — specifically Crittenden County — as an example and give you a peek at the Private Option in actual practice.

Our agency insures all sorts of individuals and entities from municipalities to pet shop owners, from CEO’s of high-profile companies to convenience store clerks. We run the gambit of individuals and businesses. Insuring all of these types of people and businesses has allowed us to see the real economic impact the Private Option has caused in Arkansas.

We insure several Emergency Service Providers and physicians around the state. When an emergency medical 911 call comes into the county dispatch office, it gets randomly assigned to one of the counties EMS providers. The provider responds to the call and then transports the person to the hospital, where the hospital is bound by law to at a minimum stabilize the patient before releasing them back home.

Both parties — the EMS provider and the hospital — agree to provide these services blindly having no idea whether or not the patient has insurance or the ability to pay for the services rendered. These leaps of faith had pushed the county hospital to near bankruptcy.

Over the last 30 years, Crittenden County has seen a mass exodus of healthcare providers, a massive decline in hospital admissions, and a massive poverty rate that has at least not improved any. About the only real measurable statistic that has increased over the last 30 years is the number of people who have received either an associate’s degree or bachelors degree.

But with a poverty rate as high as 25% and an unemployment rate that has fluctuated between 10% and 15% over the last 30 years, it was hard to see hope for Crittenden County. Until the Private Option.

Crittenden Regional Hospital is among the county’s largest employers with a workforce of nearly 400. These 400 people buy gas from the convenience store owner, they buy pizza from the pizza parlor owner, they buy insurance from their local insurance agent, and they borrow money from their local banker to buy a car from their local car dealer.

This is classic trickle-down economics with a twist of Keynesian economics. In other words, sometimes government spending can create jobs and boost consumer spending while at the same time providing a critical service like healthcare.

What I have seen happen first-hand from the Private Option has been nothing short of amazing.

Let’s look at what happens with enrolling one person on the Private Option that calls 911. The first person that benefits economically is me, the insurance agent. I get paid a commission every month for every person I enroll. Then the EMS provider gets to back bill Medicaid for the pick-up, the hospital gets paid for services and rendered, and the patient then has a follow-up appointment with their local doctor upon being released from the hospital.

One government program just provided an economic boost to four different companies, who will as a direct result of this government spending have to pay more taxes while serving the greater good by providing healthcare to those members of our society who can’t afford it.

If the Private Option is considered Big Government, then I’d say this is a case of when bigger government benefits us all.