Kaiser Health News has an interesting article about the health care problems of some of the people who live in Mike Ross’s district. Ross is one of the Blue Dog Democrats who is threatening to deep-six Obama’s health care reform package unless changes are made (most notably eliminating or eviscerating the public option). Here are some excerpts:
PRESCOTT, Ark. – Rep. Mike Ross, who grew up in this tiny town of 3,600, represents residents like 62-year-old Sandy Barham, a restaurant owner with a heart ailment who can’t afford health insurance for herself or her employees.
“I can’t tell you the stress of living on the edge, just wondering, ‘Am I going to get sick?'” she said in an interview at the Broadway Railroad Café, where fried catfish with hush puppies is a popular feature. “I feel embarrassed, almost, when I go to the doctors and tell them I don’t have insurance.”
Many people in and around this economically depressed town can’t afford insurance, even as the battered economy has made it harder for employers to provide coverage for workers. They’re looking to Washington for help, and Ross, a conservative Democrat with a strong voice in the debate over health care legislation, says he’s on their side.
Yet Ross stands ready to try to block passage of a House bill that, its supporters say, would provide exactly what Arkansas needs: guaranteed insurance and a wider choice of coverage at competitive prices.
[…]
Prescott, where Ross and his family live, calls itself “The City of Progress.” Its railroad museum, housed in a restored 1912 train depot, is a point of pride. Pink and white crape myrtles enhance the look of the train tracks. Outside of town, horses graze in pastures abutting fields dotted with bulging bales of rolled hay.It’s a classic rural scene, but the government seat of Nevada County is barely hanging on. Vacant storefronts dot the streetscape. Last year, Potlach Corp., a forest products business, closed its mill, eliminating about 180 jobs.
The economy is taking a toll on health care on Prescott. Two in 10 residents have no health care insurance, and those who do have coverage have seen their premiums skyrocket by 80 percent since 2000, according to data compiled by Ross’ office.
Locally owned J.D. and Billy Hines Trucking Inc. has had to raise the deductible on its family policy to $2,000 to keep premiums, now $336 a month for employees, from rising faster. At her restaurant, Barham sometimes hears patrons talking about how they’re going to afford prescriptions. “They’ll say, ‘I’m going to get half my medication,” she said.
Barham frets about the well-being of her own uninsured employees, and has on occasion paid for them to see a doctor. But she has her own problems to worry about: poorly functioning heart valves that may eventually need surgery. Her hope is to remain healthy until she qualifies for Medicare, the federal program for the elderly and disabled, in three years.
Think about that for a minute. This woman, to put it bluntly, is hoping she does not drop dead before she gets access to one of the two public health care programs available in this country, which are limited to very low-income or no-income Americans, and Americans over the age of 62, respectively. She does not currently fit into either category, so she has to wait two years, with malfunctioning heart valves, and hope that her heart does not give out before then.
What happens to the people Ms. Barham employs if her restaurant has to shut down? How many other lives will be affected by that loss of income, meager as it is? What is the ripple effect, beyond even the people who are immediately affected? Is it possible — is it actually, really and truly possible — that other Americans, some of whom may be much more financially secure than Barham, may have good insurance policies, may not have to worry about outrunning heart disease — still have a stake in whether Barham has access to the health care she needs, at a price she can afford? Does her cardiovascular health, and her very existence, actually benefit (indirectly, but legitimately) Americans who will never know or meet her? And if the system of health care that Barham and others like her should be able to turn to in situations like these is broken, and that system has to be fixed, and fixing that system costs money, and somebody has to pay that money, should two million Americans who are very high income earners be required to pay their fair share of taxes to produce that money? Or should they be exempted?
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