In a continuation of the Senate’s new tone-deaf campaign to ignore the health insurance needs New York’s small businesses and families, Senate Insurance Chair Seward, dropped a bill  today that calls for a study of the studies about whether New York ought to set up a Health Insurance Exchange.

Senator Seward apparently lost the memorandum from his constituents. Well, here’s the Cliff notes version:

• An Exchange would get health coverage for roughly 19,000 of his roughly 40,000 currently uninsured constituents.
• An Exchange would drop the rate of uninsured in his region by 50%.
• An Exchange would help bring the prices of coverage for New York’s small businesses by 22% and for families directly purchasing coverage by 66%.

What happened to the Senator Seward who told us two months ago that:   “I believe that one way or another it would be good for the health insurance market to have an exchange, even if the federal legislation goes away. I’m a believer in this concept. It’s very popular in the business — particularly the small business — community. I would like to see us move forward as a state. We just have to work out some additional details and convince the members of the Senate that this is in fact a good piece of legislation.” (WNYC News, January 9, 2012)

Olly-Olly-Oxen free, will the real Senator Seward please come back to us?