CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – A new report predicts that New Hampshire’s health care costs will nearly double in the next six years, with one out of every five dollars spent in the state going to medical care.

The Endowment for Health put together a panel of business, health care, government and nonprofit agency leaders last year to look at health care costs and coverage. The result was a report released last week called “Stepping Up to the Future – a Healthier Health Care System for New Hampshire.”

Without taking immediate steps to stabilize the health care system, “we could face a rapid deterioration of the system that will affect all of us: rich, poor or in-between, North Country or Seacoast, young or old, insured or not,” the report said.

The report recommends improving public access to data about the costs and quality of medical services, tax credits for small businesses that provide insurance coverage and promoting illness prevention through education and marketing.

It also said the state should avoid several things, including cuts to public programs such as Medicaid, additional mandates for insurance coverage and law changes that could lead to individuals losing their insurance.

James Squires, a physician and former state senator who now serves as the endowment’s president, sees the report as a call to arms.

“I think at some point there will be enough of a critical mass to simply demand some action,” he said.

“And when that happens, there needs to be enough information to come up with a creative solution.”

Brenda Quinn, CEO of Intelitek Inc., in Manchester, was one of several business leaders on the panel. Though she pays 100 percent of the premiums for her employees, she believes other employers will start dropping or reducing insurance coverage as premiums continue to rise.

“Employers pay the largest portion of the medical burden in this country, and we’re getting tired,” she said. “We don’t want to take this anymore.”

She supports tax credits to reward companies that provide better coverage, and in the long term, wants to see greater information-sharing about health care costs so consumers can make wiser choices.

The state insurance department recently unveiled a new Web site, www.nhhealthcost.org, that lets consumers see how much the cost of certain medical procedures can vary. Though officials acknowledge there’s not a lot consumers can do with the limited information, the state is working on implementing the Comprehensive Health Care Information System, which will contain all claims date from private and public payers without identifying patients.

Having more information about the true costs of medical care will help push needed reforms, said Alex Feldvebel, the state’s deputy insurance commissioner.

Another member of the panel, George Long, believes New Hampshire offers the perfect laboratory for systematic reform because it’s a small state “full of smart people.”

“We’ve only got a million people here, and we ought to be able to experiment with some things here in this state that would not be possible to experiment with in some huge state,” he said. “But until we try to do something different, we’re just going to keep getting what we’ve got.”

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On the Net: http://www.endowmentforhealth.org

AP-ES-03-13-05 1158EST