KINDER'S COMMENTARY: LEGISLATIVE SESSION JUST ENDED OFFERED USUAL MIXED BAG

The 1997 session of the General Assembly that ended May 16 was the usual mixed bag. What follows are a few observations on our work product:

The major accomplishment of the session was passage of a 3-cent cut in the state sales tax on food. Gov. Mel Carnahan had made this a priority after House Republicans had championed it for three straight years. Also included in the bill is a measure equalizing the tax treatment of private pensioners with that of public-sector (government) pensioners. This latter provision will be phased in over several years.

A major managed care reform bill passed both houses and is on the governor's desk awaiting his signature. This bill attempts to redress certain problems, some perceived and some real, in the manner that managed care and insurance companies transact their business, especially as it affects: a) health care providers; and b) individuals covered through their workplace health care coverage.

Nearly every organization of health care providers in the state -- physicians, chiropractors, retail pharmacists, optometrists, etc. -- was plugging hard for this bill. Leading business organizations -- the Missouri Chamber of Commerce, Associated Industries of Missouri and others -- were opposed. This latter group sees managed care as their vehicle to getting control of health care costs that were completely out of control as recently as the late 1980s. they argued, persuasively, that the health care marketplace is moving to address health care costs and get them in line with reality.

It is to be hoped that some of the most noxious anti-business provisions were removed from the bill prior to its passage. For instance, in one incarnation, the bill contained a form of "community rating." Without going into too much detail on an arcane subject, community rating is a revolution in insurance risk management that would prohibit insurance companies from taking normal risk factors into account in the writing of their policies. Where it has been tried, as in Kentucky, we were told it has driven every health care insurance company but one out of the state. A few of us served notice that this provision had to come out of the bill or it would be much tougher to pass, if at all. This disastrous portion of the bill was deleted.

Included in the state budget that awaits Gov. Carnahan's signature is funding for two new prisons. There is also money for important projects of local interest: Beginning funding for the new Cape Girardeau Area Vocational Technical School ($1.5 million); funding in the same category and in the same amount for a new post-secondary technical training center in Sikeston; and $2 million for a new polytechnical institute at Southeast Missouri State University. This last, especially, is a part of the univerity's enhanced mission to reach out and meet the needs of our region for high-tech employment training for industry. All these items await the governor's signature. None is assured until he gives his approval.

Among other measures awaiting the governor's signature is the bill banning the procedure known as partial-birth abortion. The governor's decision to sign or veto this bill is one of the most interesting that will unfold over this summer. Most folks I talk to are guessing that, consistent with the governor's long-held pro-abortion views, it will be a veto. If that be the case, then a huge struggle awaits us all in the veto session that will convene in September, and a major effort to override a veto will be undertaken.

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.