Date: Friday, May 28, 2021
Time: 8:00 AM
Committee: Assembly Ways & Means
SB 420 – establishment of a public health benefit plan; prescribing certain goals and requirements relating to the plan; requiring certain health carriers to participate in a competitive bidding process to administer the plan; requiring certain providers of healthcare to participate in the plan; exempting rules and policies governing the plan from certain requirements; requiring certain persons to report the abuse and neglect of older persons, vulnerable persons and children; requiring the State Plan for Medicaid to include certain coverage relating to pregnant women; requiring the establishment of a statewide Medicaid managed care program.
Explanation of SB 420-
In 2010 the Federal Government passed the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) which did absolutely nothing to address healthcare costs. In fact, individual health insurance premiums in Nevada are 300-400% higher now than they were before the “Affordable” Care Act was passed. The government hid this price increase by spending over $1.7 Trillion on increased Medicaid expenses and premium subsidies for many consumers. Many consumers who didn’t qualify for subsidies or Medicaid but couldn’t afford the new higher premiums were forced to give up their healthcare and join the ranks of the uninsured.
Now in 2021, Democrats in the Legislature want to bring the failures of Obamacare to the Silver State. They’ve introduced SB420, sponsored by Democrat Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro. This bill creates a government-run public option in the state of Nevada which will cost Nevadans $77 Million in its first two years, and nearly $200
million in the following two years. According to the legislature’s own fiscal notes, the ongoing costs will be tens of millions of dollars every year after that.
Like the Affordable Care Act, the vast majority of the expense in SB420 comes from expanding access to Medicaid, and the state is solely responsible to cover all of those expenses.
Government-run healthcare has created problems every time it has been implemented. Non-profit insurance co-operatives were part of the original Affordable Care Act and every single one of them failed within a few years. Democrats in the Legislature know that this is a terrible bill that will financially cripple our state. Yet, they still are trying to rush through the same anti-free market and anti-consumer ideas that failed in 2010 and actually led to consumers losing their plans and being forced to be uninsured.
When the federal government needed $1.7 Trillion to pay for Obamacare, they simply cranked up the printing presses and borrowed money from our grandchildren. The state of Nevada can’t do that – if legislative Democrats want to waste hundreds of millions of dollars on ineffective and unnecessary programs, they need to get that money from
Nevada taxpayers.
Nearly every healthcare provider, chamber of commerce, and insurance company in the state of Nevada is against this bill. It’s time for Democrats to listen to health care experts and professionals, work on the root causes of high healthcare costs, and put an end to government-run healthcare.
