Health Care Reform Watch Few Changes to Laws vs. Trillions and Government Control? By Carolyn Cormey If you are a woman over 40, who does not receive health insurance through your own or your husband's workplace - medical insurance is a huge and often unaffordable expense! If you don't have group insurance AND you have a "pre-existing" medical condition when you go out to buy medical health insurance, you may not even be able to find an insurance company to insure you at all. If you do find a company to insure you and can eek-out enough to pay the huge monthly premium (upwards of $700) you must simply accept the minimal coverage and huge deductible that is built into the medical insurance policy, take it or leave it. There is no help out there for these women (and men too), with incomes above the poverty level, age 40 - 65, who financially struggle to support themselves and their families. They are Realtors, repair men, computer techs . . . . in all sorts of businesses, independent contractors, where there is no group insurance available to them. Government provides assistance to insure children, the homeless, the elderly, illegal aliens of all ages BUT there is no help for the working 55 year old woman who goes without insurance and avoids trips to the doctor so she can pay her monthly bills. When she is taken to the emergency room for heart palpitations, a battery of tests are made to rule out a heart attack and she goes home, 5 hours later, owing the hospital $5,500 (which is half her savings). Stories like this are an unnecessary tragedy. Private insurance companies and our US Congress are equally to blame for allowing these situations to go on year after year - but - the ability and responsibility to change and fix this, strictly belongs to our US Congress. Congress has the power to fix this by simply passing some legislation to make practical changes to existing laws and regulations - changes that do not include putting us Trillions and Trillions of dollars deeper into debt, changes that do not set up 53 new commissions, boards and committees to regulate our health care from cradle to death! Congress does not "fix" programs - it simply "creates" new programs based on programs that have a history of problems they have not fixed! Hello Universal Health Care Public Option! To Save Trillions: The Congress could promote competition between private insurance companies to improve coverage and reduce premiums by simply removing the STUPID rules and regulations that restrict insurance companies to just insuring those living within a single state. If that 55 year old women lived in Washington State and developed diabetes while insured by Blue Cross/Blue Shield AND then moved to Florida, she had to apply for a completely different medical insurance policy with a different insurance company. Blue Cross/Blue Shield in Washington State is completely unrelated to Blue Cross of Florida. So now, she moves to Florida, with a medical history of diabetes (or high cholesterol or had a skin cancer removed . . or whatever) and she had to apply for new, medical coverage with Blue Cross of Florida, as a person with a pre-existing medical condition! There is every good reason to think that Blue Cross of Florida will severely rate-up her monthly premium OR, most likely - refuse to insure her at all. If her Blue Cross/Blue Shield she had in Washington State, was allowed to insure her when she moved to Florida, she could have taken her policy with her and then would not have had to apply for new insurance as someone with a pre-existing medical condition! Such a simple concept!!!!! Without spending Trillions or even Billions, Congress could immediately make medical health insurance cheaper, better and available to millions more people by simply changing legislation to allow large Associations of all sorts to be considered "Groups" for the purpose of making medical group insurance available to their members (no discrimination against pre-existing medical conditions in group insurance). Imagine the bargaining power of groups like the National Association of Realtors, various church denominations (nation-wide) and large trade associations - in negotiating good medical coverage with lower premiums for their collective members! Imagine all the age 40 to 65 year old women who would now be able to afford to be covered by medical health insurance, get regular doctor checkups and avoid that expensive trip to the emergency room that takes away their savings! At this very minute, in a plea to save themselves - private medical insurance companies are more than willing to give up their tough stand on discriminating against those with pre-existing medical conditions - so, now is the time to strongly examine this alternative AND it will not cost our country TRILLIONS! Congress could provide consumers with more spendable cash by allowing each of us who must buy our own insurance to buy it with pre-tax dollars. They allow corporations who buy health insurance for their employees to buy the insurance with pre-tax dollars, why don't they do the same for us? For the uninsured: Finally, we have to recognize that there are those who can truly not afford medical insurance and treating their sicknesses through emergency room visits drains billions, bankrupting our critical care and hospital facilities. Spending federal dollars to help them would actually save us money! Congress could make Medical debit cards available on a means-tested basis. On a personal note - I was a lady like the one above, who moved to Florida and had to pay upwards of $700 a month for minimal health insurance. When I went into Medicare (with a Medicare Supplement) my insurance cost dropped to under $300. However, I immediately lost several of my doctors who have had to stop taking Medicare patients because Medicare keeps cutting the fees they are allowed to charge for service, to the point where these Specialists are no longer able to cover their HUGE mal-practice insurance premiums, staff and office costs. The proposed Universal Health Care Bill currently mandates payments to doctors at 5% over what they mandate through Medicare. However soon, this bill schedules the difference to go away and the mandated payments will be the same. In the Universal Health Care legislation - all amendments to tackle or deal with mal-practice insurance OR to put limitations on punitive awards OR to limit attorney's fees or cuts - have been defeated on a party line vote, all Democrats voting against any Mal-Practice reform and all Republicans voting for it. Given all of this - it appears that this legislation will be inspiring our brightest and best youth - to become attorneys, not doctors! Just what we need, isn't it? Our Legislators are coming home for the month of August. Call their offices in Washington, DC, or in your local districts to find out when they have scheduled Town Meetings to explain this healthcare legislation and answer your questions. OR - take some friends and visit their local offices to share your concerns and opinions. You can locate their contact information by going to www.contactingthecongress.org or by calling the Capital Switchboard at (202) 225-3121.

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