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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Gov. Jon Huntsman is warning insurance companies to offer affordable health plans or face a law that would order changes.
"I'm very willing to let this year play out to see where we find ourselves in a year," Huntsman told The Salt Lake Tribune. "If that doesn't work, then I think we're looking very realistically at an individual mandate in getting us to where I think we need to be."
House Bill 133 creates a task force and requires lawmakers and Huntsman's staff to develop a health-care plan by November.
The bill, which has passed the House, does not mandate new insurance plans, but Huntsman said he is counting on insurers to "play ball."
Huntsman doesn't want the task force to become the "abyss from which there is no return." He said he could call lawmakers into a special session for progress reports.
Scott Ideson, president of Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Utah, said the company's new insurance plans will "address health and wellness to a much greater degree than they have in the past, driving down costs and generating a more reasonable premium base for the consumer."
Huntsman said the possibility of a national health-care strategy is a reason to do something in Utah.
"We need to do it now if we want to do it our way," he said Tuesday, "or else you're going to have to do it in large part based upon whatever comes to you from the federal level."
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Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
