In compliance with the federal Affordable Care Act, Gov. Neil Abercrombie announced Monday he has selected an existing health care benefits package that will serve as the base line for all future insurance coverage offered in the state come 2014, when the law is fully implemented.

Consumer groups, health care providers, insurers, hospitals and other health care professionals participated in the discussion that resulted in identifying the Hawaii Medical Service Association’s Preferred Provider Plan 2010 as the benchmark package for all future coverage plans, Abercrombie said.

The federal act required that states choose a plan that includes 10 essential health benefits that range from hospitalization to chronic disease management.

Abercrombie said during a news conference at the state Capitol that using the HMSA package as a base line for all coverage will not have a profound effect on health care costs to employers because of the relative similarity among all plans offered in the state. He said choosing an appropriate package was not difficult because Hawaii already offers highly comprehensive coverage through its Prepaid Health Care Act.

"This has not been as difficult as it is for other states or has been for other states because of the pioneer work that was done in the state of Hawaii way back in the 1970s with the Prepaid Health Care Act," the governor said. "Our plans are so comprehensive that … I almost could have thrown a dart at a board with the various plans on it and all would have been OK."

Abercrombie emphasized that the decision to use an HMSA package as the base line for all future coverage offerings should not be marred by the controversy that arose in March when he appointed HMSA and other big-name health care providers as board members to govern Hawaii’s future health insurance exchange, known as the Hawaii Health Connector.

The federal act requires all states to set up health insurance exchanges that will match uninsured individuals to subsidized health care plans and offer tax credits to small businesses that purchase plans through the exchange. Consumer groups voiced concern that insurance company representatives on the board might place their companies’ needs above consumers’ interests.

"This was not a contest," Abercrombie said during the news conference. "This was not an opportunity to see who we could pit against each other."

The decision to use HMSA’s Preferred Provider Plan 2010 as the "coverage floor" for future plans will likely have little to no effect on people already insured in Hawaii because coverage in the state is already so close to being in compliance with the federal act, state Healthcare Transformation Coordinator Beth Giesting said.

Giesting said the HMSA package was chosen because it has the most to offer consumers.

"The best array of benefits happened to be the plan that was offered by HMSA," she said.

Abercrombie said HMSA will not have an inside advantage on competing to cover Hawaii’s 83,000 uninsured adults.

"No one gets any favoritism in this," he said. "Some people prefer to go to a whole array of doctors and have a choice. Other people prefer to go to an HMO that provides everything in one spot. The point is, Are all the benefits going to be available to you? The answer is yes. Who you choose to make the provider of those benefits to you will be entirely up to the individual."