Congressman Kenny Hulshof unveiled his health care plan for Missouri today, drawing on many of the same market-based approaches that were the basis for Gov. Matt Blunt’s failed Insure Missouri proposal.

The Republican candidate for governor made it clear he believes that his plan, called HealthMAX, was not Insure Missouri, but something completely different. He called it “bold, very bold.”

The plan would subsidize health savings accounts for working poor and create a statewide health care plan that any Missourian could buy into, Hulshof said. He and state Rep. Ed Robb, R-Columbia, estimated the costs of the plan at a “ballpark” of $50 million.

The key to the plan is the concept of expanding the state’s risk pool by allowing all state and other public employees to choose HealthMAX as their plan. However, Hulshof stressed that the plan was voluntary, so there is no way to estimate how much the state’s risk pool will expand. The expanded risk pool is necessary to entice insurance companies to bid to provide HealthMAX services at a cost low enough for consumers who already have insurance to choose the new state-sponsored program.

“I really believe this competition model is going to keep costs down,” Hulshof said. “I think this is fairly unique.”

Hulshof said he developed the program in consultation with health professionals and House and Senate Republicans. The Republican candidate for governor had been criticized by Democrats for promising a health care plan early in his primary race against Sarah Steelman but not coming up with one until today.

Hulshof called his proposal a “legal framework” that creates market incentives for insurance companies and medical providers to become involved in the HealthMAX program. He said his plan would not create a new bureacracy, one of the most frequent criticisms of the Insure Missouri plan.

On a day in which Census Bureau numbers show no major changes to Missouri’s uninsured population, Hulshof said his proposal is about improving the health care system for all Missourians.

“This goes way beyond the uninsured population that everybody seems to be focused on,” Hulshof said.

 I’ll update later with Democratic response and more details of the proposal.