The Indiana Insurance Commissioner Must Resign

Indiana Insurance Commissioner Stephen W. Robertson must resign immediately.

According to the Indiana Department of Insurance, its role is to protect Hoosiers "as they purchase and use insurance products to keep their assets and their families from loss or harm." Robertson and his agency have disgracefully abrogated that role when it came to today's rollout of the health insurance exchanges as part of the Affordable Care Act.

This abrogation began over the summer, when the Indiana DOI asserted that premiums would increase an average of 72% under the ACA, using shady math that was thoroughly disproven in an investigation by the Washington Post. Yet those assertions remained on the home page of the DOI website as of today.

What was not on the website of the agency Robertson oversees was a single link to healthcare.gov, the federal website that will operate the insurance exchange for Indiana.

Such a link was the minimum Indiana could have done for its constituents who were curious about their options under the ACA. Robertson could apparently not rouse himself to do even that.

Kansas, which is as politically conservative as Indiana, launched its own portal to the federally operated exchange that contained a wealth of specific information and was even mildly entertaining. Even Texas, perhaps the state most hostile to the ACA, has a link on its DOI website to healthcare.gov. Indiana appears to be the exception, and Robertson has disgraced the Hoosier State with this delinquency.

There are more than 550,000 Hoosiers who lack health insurance. Approximately half of those would be able to purchase coverage on the health insurance exchange subsidized with tax credits. Robertson has dismissed that concept, stating in a letter posted to his agency's website "these subsidies do not change the insurance product's cost, only the price some consumers will ultimately pay out of pocket.” That is completely oblivious to the fact that the vast majority of his constituents won't make that fine distinction. Show me a single Hoosier who wrings their hands about the crop subsidies that allow them purchase a loaf of bread for $1.99, and I have a bridge to sell you.

Robertson is entitled to his opinions, as misguided as they are. But he is not entitled to impose them on the 6.6 million Indianans whose agency is charged with protecting from potential financial ruin or the predatory practices of improperly regulated insurers. No doubt, many Hoosiers will fail to obtain healthcare insurance as a result of Robertson's willful negligence, and that is a shame. When they become bankrupted by the medical bill they can't pay, it will be a tragedy – one that could have been avoided.

Robertson's negligence of his duties have much to do with Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who appointed him to the post and is one of the most hostile governors in the U.S. to healthcare reform. Keeping his silence about the health insurance exchange is no doubt part of the price of keeping his job. But by paying this price, he must quit anyway. Immediately.

Ron Shinkman is the Publisher of Payers & Providers.