Copyright 1999 The Hartford Courant Company
THE
HARTFORD COURANT
May 15, 1999 Saturday, STATEWIDE
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. A15
LENGTH: 641 words
HEADLINE:
POLITICAL LEADERS SILENT AS NUMBER OF UNINSURED CONTINUES TO
GROW
BYLINE: JOHN MacDONALD; John MacDonald is the
senior correspondent in The Courant's Washington bureau.
BODY:
A huge pile of mail stacked up on my desk
while I was on vacation last week, much of it of little note. But one piece was
important and distressing. It was a study showing that the number of Americans
without health insurance could climb from 43 million to 61
million by 2009 if the price of insurance continues to rise and the economy
suffers a downturn in the next decade.
The study came from the
nonpartisan National Coalition on Health Care, whose nearly 100
members include businesses, labor unions, consumer groups,
health professionals and religious organizations. "The number
of people without health insurance in this country is already a national
disgrace," said Henry E. Simmons, the coalition's president and a medical
doctor. "It undermines the security of millions of families and the efficiency
of our health system. This study tells us that things could get far worse if
nothing is done to address the problem. Our political leaders must get engaged
on this issue."
Simmons is right on all counts, especially about the
lack of leadership from the White House and Congress. Neither has had much to
say about the issue since 1997, when they agreed on a program to cover 2.5
million of the nation's 11 million uninsured children.
Meanwhile, the
number of uninsured continues to rise by about 1 million a year, and the report
by Simmons' group indicates there is no end in sight. The report cites a number
of reasons:
* Fewer people have coverage through their workplace, even
though times have been good. In 1987, 69 percent of the working-age population
had employment-based coverage; by 1997, that number had fallen to 64 percent.
* Health insurance is too expensive for many small businesses and
unaffordable for many low- and middle-income Americans, especially minorities.
Minority groups represent 24 percent of the U.S. population but account for 46
percent of the uninsured.
* The cost of individually purchased health
insurance is prohibitively expensive. For example, in the 1980s a family of four
had to spend 12 percent of its monthly after-tax income to buy individual health
insurance. Now the figure has nearly doubled.
One significant reason for
the cost increases is prescription drugs. A recent report by the private
Employee Benefit Research Institute showed that in 1997 the cost of
pharmaceutical products rose 14 percent, compared with 5 percent for overall
national health spending. The increase is causing leading employers and health
plans to review their coverage of prescription drugs, the institute found.
If political leaders are silent, two major insurers have come forward
with different ideas for solving the problem. On the same day that Simmons'
group issued its report, Aetna U.S. Healthcare announced it will begin offering
three scaled-down policies at prices low enough for small businesses that cannot
afford to cover their workers.
The Blue Cross and Blue Shield
Association, meanwhile, has been promoting a plan to expand coverage by
extending federal tax credits to low-wage earners in small companies.
Neither plan is perfect. Critics say the Aetna U.S. Healthcare plan
would leave seriously ill people with large bills and encourage businesses to
switch to bare-bones policies. There is no cost estimate on the Blue Cross
proposal, but it could be expensive. The federal government will spend $24
billion over the next five years just to put a dent in the number of uninsured
children.
But at least insurers are talking about the issue. Now is the
time for political leaders to get involved as well. Mary Nell Lehnhard, Blue
Cross senior vice president, was right when she said:
"The issue of the
uninsured and how to address it is a complex problem. It will not be solved with
a single solution. Therefore, we need everyone to put his or her ideas on the
table."
COLUMN: John MacDonald
LOAD-DATE: November 9, 1999 
