Anchorage Daily News

We should throw out the existing health insurance system and replace it with a single payer, national health care plan, similar to what every other Western industrialized, and some non-Western industrialized nations enjoy.

The phrase "for-profit health insurance" is an obvious oxymoron. We have inferior health care at a higher cost compared to almost every other country. To a large extent, that's because of private insurance and HMOs and their exorbitant profit margins.

My wife and I don't show up on the statistics as uninsured. Self-employed, we have paid for years on a major medical policy that currently costs us $1,100 per month. We can barely, but luckily, afford this, but the kicker is that it has a $10,000 annual deductible, meaning we have to spend over $23,000 per year, plus pay for all out-of-pocket medical expenses, such as doctor visits, prescriptions, etc. before the insurance company pays a dime. To make it worse, our company has a reputation for only paying large claims (accidents, cancer, heart attacks) after their policyholders are forced to sue them, but we don't dare drop it, since we have both developed some health concerns over the years that would keep any other companies from insuring us. Our choice is to keep paying or, as we get further into middle age, to risk our entire retirement fund on a catastrophic illness or accident.

I've spoken to other self-employed folks and small business owners who are in the same position. We have a relative who is also self-employed and who had an unusual health incident when he was younger. His only source of health insurance is a State of Alaska program for otherwise uninsurable people. He and his wife, although still comparatively young, pay $646 per month for policies that have a $15,000 deductible and a $10,000 deductible respectively and also have to pay almost all of their own out-of-pocket expenses, to try and shelter what they saved for retirement.

Even those with employer-provided health insurance are not as covered as well as they may believe. Fifty percent of all bankruptcies in America are a result of medical bills, and a shockingly large percentage of those bankrupted had health insurance. Everyone reading this, other than seniors over 65, government employees and veterans, who effectively have government-guaranteed health care, is just a job loss and an unforeseen health problem away from losing everything.

This is intolerable.

What effect does the current situation have on productivity and innovation? How many would-be entrepreneurs have reluctantly discarded their dreams to stay in jobs for the health insurance? How many folks have stayed in bad jobs because they couldn't leave the safety net of employer insurance behind?

Right now, as health reform is being debated in Congress, the insurance companies, the corporate hospitals, the pharmaceutical companies and affiliated industries are taking control of the discussion, aided by friendly senators and representatives who rely on them to help finance their campaigns. There are enormous profits at stake.

Contact our folks in Congress and the White House, and let them know we need one large nonprofit insurance pool into which everyone pays, to which everyone has access, and that has the power to negotiate costs of service. It's past time for Americans to enjoy what the citizens of every other industrialized nation, and for that matter, our representatives and senators, enjoy.

Lawrence Ross is a long-time real estate broker in Anchorage.

ADVERTISEMENT