Editorial: Insurance plan delay makes sense

Friday, Dec. 26, 1997 | 12:15 p.m.

This week's news that a highly touted program to insure up to 20,000 Nevada children won't begin Jan. 1 as planned is not all bad news.

Nevada Check Up was proposed by Gov. Bob Miller as a way to meet the health needs of many of the state's uninsured children.

However, the program was not fully embraced in Clark County. In previous discussions, County Commissioner Erin Kenny raised concerns because University Medical Center was not included in the plans. Since the county hospital cares for indigent patients -- last year it provided $30.9 million in free care -- it seemed reasonable that it be part of an overall plan to take care of uninsured children.

After further discussions, the state saw the light. Christopher Thompson, director of the state Division of Health Care Financing and Policy, says it's important that UMC be a part of the program.

Under Miller's original Nevada Check Up proposal, managed-care organizations would be paid an estimated $1,000 a year per child. That would have eliminated UMC because it's not a managed-care organization. Yet UMC provides millions of dollars in care to indigents, many of whom are children.

UMC is the logical choice to handle the program in Clark County. Officials also expect to be able to cover even more children than originally proposed.

The Legislative Health Care Committee meets Jan. 12 to discuss the plan.

Delaying the program to include UMC to expand the coverage area makes sense.

By the time they start arriving, however, you'll be facing another unexpected bill: A higher water surcharge.

Lost in the uproar over a proposed quarter-cent sales tax increase to pay for a $3.2 billion water and sewer system expansion was a small excise tax on water use, which the County Commission quietly approved this week.

The average residential user will be charged a quarter-percent reliability surcharge of about 7 to 10 cents a month beginning in March. All other customers will pay a 2.5 percent excise tax on their total water bill, including service charges, backflow and consumption rate.

The County Commission came short of the votes needed to approve the sales-tax increase, opting to place the issue as an advisory question on the 1998 ballot.

For residential customers, the excise tax means only a few pennies extra a month to pay for what amounts to only 5 percent of the water and sewer expansion system.

Few customers will even notice it in their bills. However, they should know what it's for to help them make a more informed decision when it comes time to support -- or reject -- other means of paying for the much-needed expansion.