I had an interesting conversation last week with a friend of mine who attended a recent American Medical Association meeting. When the conversation began, I was unsure of where it was going. He being a Republican and me being a Democrat, we have agreed not to discuss some issues.

He said that the presenter at the meeting he had attended introduced the subject of health care reform by appealing to doctors to think of the insurance crisis as an economic issue rather than a political issue. He cited statistics, many too numbers for my word-oriented brain, to remember but he cited numbers indicating the disproportionate increase in percentage of income that Americans now pay for health insurance compared to a decade ago.
We talked about the number of good people we know in our area who were employed and had insurance. Now they have none or their insurance is subsidized by the Obama Cobra plan which makes it almost affordable. Then there are people who have insurance, but their employers are finding it more and more difficult to pay for the level of coverage they have had in the past. All of these things considered by people who thought that they would never be in this predicament.
I said that I was considering going to individual plans for the Gazette, even though it was not the option I wanted, but forced to do because of costs.

Then on Monday, I got notified by my insurance company (that I have paid approximately $25,000 in group premiums in the past two years) that I would not qualify for an individual insurance plan because of pre-existing conditions. What? I am basically a healthy 54-year-old woman who takes no medications-that is pretty remarkable in itself.
But, when I get a cold, I go to the doctor, get a shot, a Z-pack and get well soon. I have to. Being self-employed, I have to be at work. I don’t have the luxury of a day or two off, nor do I have the desire to expose everyone I know to what I have. I have too many mouths depending upon me to take a day off, so I go and get it over with, paying my $25 co-pay and paying for a prescription. It’s not a free ride, but it’s cheaper than the cost of staying at home for a day.
Now, I find out that is a pre-existing condition. I’m at-risk. I’m a liability to the company that I have paid $25,000 to during the past two years. They will assume that risk if I pay them the $1,384 per month that I pay for the Gazette coverage as a group, but not if I pay the $850-plus dollars that it would cost if we were on individual plans.

And you think we don’t need reform?

Yes, my friend is right. It is an economic issue, not a political one.