"We didn’t know how extensive the need was," said William Ditto, head of the Office of Disability Services for the state of New Jersey. Mr. Ditto tried to explain his position in an interview with Susan K. Livio, a reporter covering the Statehouse for nj.com. "Nobody wants to do this. My back is against the wall," he further explained.

The State of New Jersey was a leader among states providing assistance to victims of brain injury. In 2001, the state developed the Brain Injury Fund that paid for speech therapy and other needed treatments not covered by health insurance. Since 2004, about 2,200 people have been helped. That will soon change with new regulations slated to begin in the Spring.

The proposed new regulation will limit access to the program to individuals whose brain injury is the result of a direct blow to the head. If this rule had been in effect in 2004 only 900 of the 2,200 would have received treatment.

Twenty-five years ago, Michael Jankowsky tried to help a friend who had gotten into a fight. He was stabbed in the heart, and his body began shutting down. The lack of oxygen getting to his brain caused extensive cell damage. He is confined to a wheel chair, still slurs his speech and has concentration problems – not unlike millions of other brain injury victims in the United States. In addition to limiting who can receive assistance from New Jersey’s Brain Injury Fund, available services are being cut as well.

Transportation will no longer be provided. Electronics like personal alarms will no longer be covered. Many brain injury victims use personal alarms to compensate for lost memory skills. It helps them know when to go places or perform other tasks. Personal computers play a huge role for these people who have both cognitive and memory problems. (continued below)

Brain Injury Costs

Living with brain injury is expensive. In addition to a regular medical doctor, many victims must see neurologists, psychologists, endocrinologists as well as speech, physical and occupational therapists. Migraine headaches are a common complaint as is high blood pressure and vision problems. Many brain injury victims find they cannot return to work or must, at least, seek stress-free work at a flexible workplace.

Chee Chee Parker worked at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Her desk was in a direct line of the impact when the plane commandeered by terrorists hit the building. Though she suffered many injuries, she says the worst was her brain injury. She left the military and was able to find another job…for a short time. The effects of brain injury forced her out.

Others say: "I lost everything, my home, job, car all.. I have not found fiance help anywhere I get SSI and food assistance I have been in poverty since my injury." – Lynn; "I have been in such poverty since my tbi." – Hope; "I sustained my TBI on March 3, 1994 when a student knocked me unconscious. Needless to say that was the end of my teaching career." – Melba; "We learn to live in poverty." – Terry

Increasing health care costs and limited, if any, sources of income make government assistance almost a necessity. Now, those programs are going away. Congress has pretty much frittered away health insurance reform. Short of Medicare for Everyone, a single-payor system, the people you read about here would still be unable to afford insurance premiums. Yes, some qualify for Medicaid, and some qualify for SSI, but that still doesn’t provide the therapies they need to develop their lives more fully. America, we need to do something.

Uncle Brice Supporters

Say Hey to the Good Folks that make this blog possible:

Online Little Rock.com is where Uncle Brice got his start. There’s a ton of information on this site about Arkansas, Little Rock, dining, dancing, shopping (and shopping online). It’s also a high-trafficked Civil War information site. You can even find out stuff about all the colleges and universities of Arkansas.

Home Business Opportunities is a site that has never been more in demand. You can find legitimate ways to earn money from home as well as a lot of information about Internet marketing, writing, building traffic for your website, and more.

The owners of Online Little Rock have a mission in life to teach everyone about brain injury. They have two websites that have hundreds of pages of information, including visitor-submitted Brain Injury Stories. The sites are Brain Injury Online and Brain Injury Guide.

Beth’s Brain Injury Blog is a favorite in the brain injury community. She writes about the good, the bad and the ugly of brain injury and how you must maintain a sense of humor to live successfully whether you are the victim or a caregiver.

Health care insurance premiums are rising again, and the health insurance gurus are blaming it on rising health care costs. Well, it’s true. Health care costs in America. It really, really costs.

Regular readers of this blog may remember my wife’s $2,500 sprained, and possibly broken, ankle. That was just the visit to the emergency room and did not include the followup visit to our primary care physician and the $143 boot for her foot.

2009 is behind us now, and I can report to you that our health insurance paid absolutely nothing for our medical care last year. Nothing. Nada. Not one cent. Why? Our deductible was $2,300, and our $2,000 in bills didn’t quite make it. But we got close. This year our deductible is $100 more. And, yes, our premium went up, too. Now, our premium didn’t go up because of our health care costs to the insurance company – they didn’t pay anything last year!

Health insurance costs in California almost made me feel ashamed of complaining about my personal situation. The Los Angeles Times published a story, "Anthem Blue Cross dramatically raising rates for Californians with individual health policies" that told of exhorbitant increases of up to 39%. One couple reported their new premium will be $27,336, up from $20,184. The new amount exceeds the poverty level in California for a family of five.

Now, let’s just assume this family of two earned $4,000 per month, prior to getting laid off. They would qualify for California’s maximum unemployment benefit of $450 per week, or about $1,800 per month. To keep their health insurance would cost $2,278 per month. You don’t even need Jethro Bodine to tell you that you can’t pay $2,278 with $1,800. You could come close if you moved out of your house and ate out of garbage cans.

Is this the health care we want in America?

Health Insurance Profits

The situation with Anthem Blue Cross in California is being investigated to make certain at least 70% of the premium is being paid out in benefits. In other words, 27.3% of that 39% increase must be paid out in benefits. That leaves 11.7% for employee pay raises and profit. And exactly how much do you expect the employees are getting in pay raises? 1%, 2% if they’re good?

But that’s not all. Anthem Blue Cross of California was fined $1 million by the state. Anthem was rejecting 20% of claims and canceling policies of pregnant women and chronically ill patients. Only in California? Not on your life. In Nevada, Anthem was able to negotiate a settlement with the state for about $1 million. In Kentucky, Anthem was ordered to refund $23.7 million to seniors and disabled patients because of inaccurately processed Medicare claims. And Colorado got a $5.7 million refund for its Anthem customers.

Is this what Republicans are trying to protect?

Health care is not okay in America. Health insurance is not okay in America. The ONLY way to fix the problem is with Medicare for All, but we are running from it as hard as we can. Well, at least the politicians are running from it, and those who are blindly following the lies being paid for by the health care and health insurance industry.

Think about it. Get the facts, and tell your friends. America must do something! Oh, and you might want to read about our new American Beer Party.

Sites We Like

Online Little Rock.com is where Uncle Brice got his start. There’s a ton of information on this site about Arkansas, Little Rock, dining, dancing, shopping (and shopping online). It’s also a high-trafficked Civil War information site. You can even find out stuff about all the colleges and universities of Arkansas.

Home Business Opportunities is a site that has never been more in demand. You can find legitimate ways to earn money from home as well as a lot of information about Internet marketing, writing, building traffic for your website, and more.

The owners of Online Little Rock have a mission in life to teach everyone about brain injury. They have two websites that have hundreds of pages of information, including visitor-submitted Brain Injury Stories. The sites are Brain Injury Online and Brain Injury Guide.

Beth’s Brain Injury Blog is a favorite in the brain injury community. She writes about the good, the bad and the ugly of brain injury and how you must maintain a sense of humor to live successfully whether you are the victim or a caregiver.

Forget the Tea Partiers. It’s time for real change for real Americans, and that means we need The American Beer Party.

The American Beer Party will support no currently organized or disorganized political party, and that pretty much covers all of them. Current political parties in America consist of the Party of Maybe and the Party of No. It’s time for a Party of Let’s Do It.

We need leaders who will shed their inhibitions and fears and stand up for what is right for all America. Beer is very good at helping one shed those things, and that’s why it’s our guiding force.

Americans are a diverse people who have been forced into two economic classes: those with lots of money, and those with little or no money. Before Ronald Reagan destroyed the "ability to pay" income tax system in America with his trickle down economic theory that pretty much stated we ought to give the money to the rich folks and they’d have enough crumbs falling from their table to sustain the rest of us.

If you’re a beer drinker, that didn’t work out too well for you, did it? After you take a moment or two to buy something from the ads that help pay the bills, I’ll be talking about some truth we ought to be holding self-evident.

We Hold These Truths…

Beer drinkers are the backbone of the American economy. They are American citizens who work locally, if they can find a job, to better provide for themselves, their families and the economy in general. Money earned is converted to stuff bought. Stuff bought helps other people have jobs who buy stuff to help other people have jobs.

Corporate America, led by Microsoft’s Bill Gates, screwed beer drinkers by saying foreigners needed to be brought over here on special visas so they could work. Every person brought over on a visa took a job away from an American citizen. But corporate America wasn’t completely satisfied with that, so they began setting up offices in other countries and shutting down offices where American citizens were working. Just ask yourself this: when was the last time you called Customer Service and got someone you could actually understand.

Now, before you get your drawers in a wad, I’m not against people in other countries bettering themselves. I’m more than happy to take in the tired and poor when we can afford it. We could afford it prior to trickle down economics. Right now, America is sitting on 10% unemployment, actually more than that when you count the folks that have already lost their unemployment money. It’s way too easy to say those folks are not trying very hard to find a job, you know, if you haven’t walked in their shoes. It’s been months since there was positive job numbers. When you have more people looking for fewer jobs, it’s pretty much a given that all of them will not find work.

Universal Health Care for All Americans?

Not having health care for all American citizens is really putting us at an economic disadvantage in the global economy. American employers are paying large amounts of money to assist their employees with health care costs. Their competitors in other parts of the world don’t have that cost, and it is a cost that must be figured into the price of American products and services. Employees are not only paying for health insurance but are also paying out-of-control health care costs with money that could be used for many other things like food, clothing, shelter and beer.

Yes, there should be an excise tax on sugary and fatty products. Yes, there should be a tax on high fat content fast food items. Our government did it to "help" Americans quit smoking. Why not do it to help Americans lose weight? Overweight people are just as much a drain on health care as smokers.

What we don’t need is mandatory health insurance coverage for people who cannot afford it. Simply get rid of Medicaid and expand Medicare to cover everyone. How much would that save in administrative costs alone? Require electronic billing for all claims. That has been proven to reduce costs by up to a dollar or more PER claim. Figure a few hundred thousand claims per day and the savings add up quickly. And I wonder how much the savings would be simply by getting rid of the military health care program?

Curb Your Evangelicalism

America ought not be trying to spread democracy to lands that don’t want it. Nations whose governments are based wholly or in part on religion are not candidates for democracy. Yes, we had a revolution in America to tear ourselves away from the control of another country. That does not mean we can have revolutions in other countries because they cannot do it themselves. Going to war in Iraq was as big a mistake as was going to war in Vietnam. And, come on, let’s admit we blew it in Afghanistan. President Obama, like Richard Nixon, said he wanted to correct the "war situation" and, like Richard Nixon, hasn’t gotten it done yet. It took Nixon into his second term before Vietnam was cleared of American soldiers, if it was ever fully cleared of them. I’m of the mind that Obama might not get that second term if things don’t start happening to help Joseph and Josephine Six Pack.

This is just the first of many rants and raves that will become The American Beer Party Movement.

Click here to read American Beer Party – Marriage Equality.

Click here to read American Beer Party – Supreme Court Debacle.

Senator Blanche Lincoln (Arkansas) joined a Republican coalition to defeat public option amendments offered in the Senate Finance Committee. Having long been considered by the main media as a fence-sitter on offering a public option to Americans suffering under the current health care system, she finally showed her colors on the issue, and the color is green.

A few weeks ago the Huffington Post reported that Senator Lincoln was the top recipient of campaign contributions from the health care industry this year among senators. Blue Cross Blue Shield, the dominant health care insurer in Arkansas, is among her top contributors.

Responses posted on the Green Party Watch website are indicative of why Lincoln may lost her Senate race in 2010. Susan wrote, "That almost makes me want to move to Arkansas to vote against Blanche Lincoln. What a sellout to the insurance industry." Dave said, "Wow, if I lived in Arkansas I’d totally start a ‘move to Arkansas to vote against Blanche Lincoln’ campaign. And Lynn said, "I AM from Arkansas and WON’T be voting for her next election."

In February of 2009 Michael D. Tanner, a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, testified before the Arkansas House Insurance and Commerce Committee. He said, "I understand the frustration that Arkansans feel with the problems facing our health care system. In particular, Arkansans are worried about cost and access. Simply put, health care and health insurance cost too much, and too many people, including roughly 486,000 Arkansans, 17 percent of your state’s population, lack health insurance. And the two problems are deeply entwined; cost is the number one reason why people go without health insurance."

Tanner also stated, "…the average cost of a family insurance plan in Arkansas tops $9,900…" According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, in 2001, Arkansas had a per capita personal income (PCPI) of $22,750 which ranked 50th in the United States (including the District of Columbia) and was 75% of the national average, $30,413. According to data released by the US Census Bureau, in 2000, the median household income was $30,293 compared to the national average of $42,148. In 2001, the median income for a family of four was $47,838 compared to the national average of $63,278. For the period 1999 to 2001, the average poverty rate was 16.3% which placed it 48th among the 50 states and the District of Columbia ranked lowest to highest.

With a median income of $30,293, is there any question why Arkansans cannot afford the average cost of a family health insurance plan of $9,900? That’s at the median level. What about the 49+% of Arkansans whose income is below the median.

At a time when Arkansas needs a Senator to stand up for them, Blanche Lincoln chose to support her contributors rather than her constituents.

More About Senator Blanche Lincoln

Blanche Lincoln Opposes Public Option

Blanche Lincoln Feet to the Fire

Sen. Blanche Lincoln Co-sponsors SHOP

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas Republican?!

Blanche Lincoln Rakes in Health Care Dollars – Huffington Post 09/04/2009 – The senior Arkansas senator is also the top recipient of campaign contributions from the health industry among senators this year. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Lincoln has received $325,350 in contributions from the health industry, as of June 30. The large amount in contributions underlies a constantly shifting position by the senator on health care reform.

Monopoly Money: "Our good friend Senator Blanche Lincoln thinks it’s very dangerous for the insurance companies to have to compete with a public plan option: ‘One of our biggest concerns is that it doesn’t need to be a government plan that usurps that ability to compete in the marketplace, which I’m concerned that a totally government-run option would do,’ she said."

For more information about her political contributions, you can visit the Federal Election Commission Blanche Lincoln Page.

Arkansas Congressman Mike Ross, chair of the Blue Dog Democrats said recently, "We cannot create a public option that puts all the other private insurance companies out of business." The compromise was announced Wednesday, and it is one that will be loved by the health insurance industry.

The Blue Dog Bandits struck hard at the American people. For example:

Employers with a payroll of less than $500,000 will not be forced to offer health insurance to their employees nor will they pay a fine. Before the compromise, the figure was $250,000.

Need help paying your health insurance premiums. Under the compromise, the government will help IF your premium exceeds 12% of your income. In other words – if your total family income is $50,000, the government will help you if your health insurance premium is more than $500.00 per month. How many uninsured Americans will jump on that? Yeah, right!

Bandalero Ross said this would save $100 billion to the government. Sure it will, and that $100 billion will either come out of the pockets of the lower and middle classes, or it will stay in their pockets (if they have any) and they will remain uninsured.

Threats from the Health Insurance Industry

Wendell Potter is a former executive at CIGNA, a major health insurance company. He explained in an interview with Bill Moyer on PBS a simple strategy for dealing with Congress. Members of Congress would simply be told, "we can make things tough for you…by running ads, commercials in your home district when you’re running for reelection, not contributing to your campaigns again, or contributing to your competitor."

Here’s a portion of the PBS interview when Moyer questions Potter about the Michael Moore movie, Sicko.

I would recommend you visit Bill Moyer’s page and see the whole interview with Wendell Potter.

The health insurance companies are getting what they paid for. Meanwhile in America…

More About Health Care Reform

Sen. Blanche Lincoln Co-sponsors SHOP

Single Payer Health Insurance for America

Public Insurance Option is Not Optional

Medical Bankruptcy Shows Broken Health Care

Sen. Blanche Lincoln Opposes Public Option

Previously, Arkansas Republicrat Senator Blanche Lincoln said, "We want to keep what works in the private industry and make it better." That was a conference call on June 18, 2009. Lincoln is a member of the Senate Finance Committee chaired by Senator Max Baucus (see article Single Payer Health Insurance for America).

Uncle Brice is pleased to have been joined in exposing Lincoln by the likes of John Amato of Crooks and Liars and Greg Sargent of the Washington Post Plum Line. The Blue America PAC has also weighed in on Arkansas’ bought-and-paid-for senior Senator.

Back in June Lincoln said, "One of our biggest concerns is that it doesn’t need to be a government plan that usurps that ability to compete in the marketplace, which I’m concerned that a totally government-run option would do."

Here comes that ol’ saying: what a difference a few days make. Okay, so that ain’t really what the old saying is. I had to change it a bit because it took Senator Lincoln a little bit longer than a day to figure out she should say something else. And while I ain’t especially happy with what she said, it is a move toward saying what people want to hear, "Health care reform must build upon what works and improve inefficiencies. Individuals should be able to choose from a range of quality health insurance plans. Options should include private plans as well as a quality, affordable public plan or non-profit plan that can accomplish the same goals as those of a public plan."

Blue America PAC Videos for Blanche Lincoln

More About Senator Blanche Lincoln

Sen. Blanche Lincoln Co-sponsors SHOP

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas Republican?!

Sen. Blanche Lincoln Opposes Public Option

Monopoly Money: "Our good friend Senator Blanche Lincoln thinks it’s very dangerous for the insurance companies to have to compete with a public plan option: ‘One of our biggest concerns is that it doesn’t need to be a government plan that usurps that ability to compete in the marketplace, which I’m concerned that a totally government-run option would do,’ she said."

For more information about her political contributions, you can visit the Federal Election Commission Blanche Lincoln Page.

America’s cry for Single Payer Health Insurance as a public option falls on more and more deaf ears, a clear signal that the health care reform wanted by citizens is NOT the health care reform being considered in Washington.

There is a little town in Manitoba, Canada called Kelwood. It’s so small I could not find it on any maps. So, the best I can tell you is that it’s close to Riding Mountain National Park and the town of McCreary in southern Manitoba about 200 miles from North Dakota.

Kelwood is the home of Alana Levandoski, a singer-songwriter best known for a concert she held in Winnipeg in honor of a group of survivors from the war in the Sudan who moved to Canada. But there is another connection between Kelwood and Winnipeg that relates to the need for public option insurance in the United States.

On July 29, 2008 two young boys were visiting their grandparent’s farm just outside Kelwood. They decided to pass the time shooting targets. Twelve-year old Sam hurriedly raised his rifle to shoot at a bird, hitting himself in the head with the scope. The pain from the impact caused him to drop the gun. It fired…and put a bullet in the right side of Sam’s brain.

Sam was rushed to the hospital in Neepawa for medical treatment. From there he was transported to the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg where he underwent a four-hour surgery that began a 12-day stay at HSC. Having lost peripheral vision in his left eye in addition to the left side of his body being paralysed, numerous therapies were begun. During those twelve days, his vision returned and the paralysis went away.

Sam is now re-learning parts of his life affected by brain injury. I contacted Sam’s mother, Jodi, and asked a simple question: "What sort of financial costs did you have with Sam’s incident?" Remember, this is Canada. Yet, I thought that everything provided to Sam couldn’t be free like we’ve been told about the Canadian public health care system. There was the hospital in Neepawa, then the hospital in Winnipeg. There was the brain surgery. There were the numerous therapies.

Jodi responded, "Here in Canada we pay for medicare thru our taxes so there hasn’t been any financial issues for us since the accident."

Can you imagine how much that would cost in the United States? Can you imagine how much the deductible and co-pay would be if you had insurance? And that doesn’t count the monthly health insurance premiums paid for the coverage? Even the single payer health insurance option wanted by most Americans would not be totally paid for by taxes and, yet, our national leaders seem to have forsaken those positions to become followers of the health insurance industry and its lobbyists.

Shame on them. (continued below)

Others Speak About Public Option Health Insurance

Single Payer Health Care Plan On The Table – Talk Radio News Service – Single payer health care supporters held a hearing yesterday at the Committee of Education and Labor to testify on the need for health care reform. Those who testified to the committee was U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Geri Jenkins …

Frances Anderton: Don't Diss Single Payer Health Care If You Haven … – I feel pity for a person who does not know what it is like to go to a doctor and have the first question be, “what’s wrong?” instead of, “who’s your insurance carrier?”

Single payer health care: big breakthroughs, interview with Rep … – Less than a month after 13 single payer advocates were arrested protesting the exclusion of single payer, it is at the table in both Houses, making progress while the multi-payer pro-insurance reform is faltering.

Related Articles on Uncle Brice’s Blog

Single Payer Health Insurance for America

Medical Bankruptcy Shows Broken Health Care

Sen. Blanche Lincoln Co-sponsors SHOP

Medical bankruptcy has become a part of the health care debate, partly due to a recent report by by Harvard researchers. The report, itself, has a good share of debate about its numbers. They stated that medical problems caused 62% of all personal bankruptcies filed in the U.S. in 2007.

Of course the aginners jumped in with both feet and their normal pompous attitude. (If you haven’t read earlier posts I should explain that aginners are folks who are against just about anything that’s good for all the people.) One of ‘em wrote, "So, where do we draw the line between ‘medical bankruptcy’ and financial irresponsibility? If someone has a 8 month emergency fund and has been maxing out their 401k and is insured for medical and disability, it’s hard to figure a way that any illness would drive them to bankruptcy."

Now, let me ask you this? Are you financially responsible because you, like that writer, have an 8-month financial emergency fund? Have you maxed your 401K contributions? Do you have full coverage medical and disability insurance? I’m assuming he thinks raiding your retirement fund that lost 40% of its value last year is a good thing? Now I’m sorta under the impression that people file bankruptcy to protect their future, not devastate it.

I’d recommend you look at the charts and statistics developed by the Kaiser Foundation and others about health insurance costs. You can find those charts in the article titled, Sen. Blanche Lincoln Co-sponsors SHOP.

Did you notice that health insurance premiums, and I’m talking about what your employer holds out of your pay, rose to $280 per month in 2008? It was only $135 per month for family coverage in 2000. I called ol’ Jethro Bodine to do some cipherin’ on this ’cause he knows all those guzintahs and such. He figured for a long spell and came back to say the employee portion of health insurance more than doubled during the Bush Administration years.

Did you notice that gasoline prices have risen during those same years? On January 3, 2000, the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline was $1.26. On June 1, 2009, the average price for a gallon of regular gas was $2.50 and that, folks, is within a hair of being doubled.

Okay, everybody raise your hand whose salary doubled during those eight years! Even if you got cost-of-living increases based on the inflation rate, health care costs were rising at double the inflation rate. (continued below)

What will YOU do – or – What WOULD you do?

Many employers are now moving to Consumer Directed Health (CDH) insurance. A person I talked to who wishes to remain anonymous was laid off in 2008, unemployed for 8 months, and eventually found a job with a salary that was $12,000 less than the former position. The new company offered CDH plans. The new plan is not terribly expensive by today’s standards: $125 a month. It pays 80% of most procedures after a $2,300 deductible, and it does not cover dental. So, in addition to the $125.00 per month for the health insurance premium, this employee also puts $75.00 monthly into a Health Savings Account.

Now, this person did have 8 months of emergency funds available when coupled with the $850 unemployment income available after paying COBRA insurance premiums of $750.00 monthly. Only $25,000 of savings had to be used to keep all bills paid.

Let’s think about this person’s situation today. Savings is $25,000 less than it was. Paycheck contributions to health care costs are $200 monthly from a salary that is $1,000 less each month. The $2,300 annual deductible is offset partially by the $900 going into the health savings account. What if something happened now to this person or a family member?

Now, what about the millions of people currently unemployed, uninsured or underinsured? The Harvard researchers were surprised to learn that 78% of those who filed a medically-related bankruptcy had health insurance and that included 60.3% who had private insurance.

What would you do if faced with this situation? Would aginners be calling you irresponsible?

It’s Time for Change

No citizen of the greatest nation on earth should be forced into bankruptcy because of medical costs. Yet, when it comes to health care, the United States of America is not considered to be the greatest nation on earth. It’s not even listed in the Top Ten, and barely listed in the Top Twenty. The government, founded in part to promote the general welfare of its citizens, does not provide for a healthy citizen population.

Single Payer Health Insurance should be an option for all Americans. But it’s not even being considered at this time. The health insurance industry, like the banking industry, is getting its way in Congress. Yes, it’s time for change. It’s time for single payer health insurance. It may be time to replace Congress with people who care.

Public Citizen: Medical bankruptcy study highlights need for … – Public Citizen: Medical bankruptcy study highlights need for single-payer. Statement of Sidney Wolfe, M.D., Director, Health Research Group at Public Citizen Published on Jun 4, 2009 – 6:16:50 AM …

NOW! Blog » Medical Bankruptcy – Time to update that statistic – Bankruptcy is a personal tragedy, of course. But it’s also an economic catastrophe. How do we expect to get out of our economic crisis is health care costs are keeping hardworking Americans down like that? …

The Domino Effect: Medical Bills Bring People to Bankruptcy … – I passed one of the well-known images of Los Angeles’ homeless population today en route to work: a shopping cart laden with plastic bags, taut with.

Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln joined with Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois and Olympia Snowe of Maine to introduce SHOP as their solution to the health care crisis in America.

SHOP is the Small Business Health Options Program and, according to Senator Lincoln’s May 5, 2009 press release is "designed to make health insurance more available and affordable for the nation’s small business employees and the self-employed".

"The majority of uninsured Americans are self-employed individuals and employees of small businesses," Lincoln said. "Small businesses are the number one source for jobs in Arkansas, yet only 29 percent of businesses with fewer than 50 employees offer health insurance coverage because it is simply too expensive. Of Arkansas’s total uninsured population, more than 56 percent, or approximately 295,000 Arkansans, are employed by a firm with 100 or fewer employees. Addressing the needs of small businesses will be critical in upcoming health reform legislation. SHOP is a pragmatic model that allows us to begin to address the needs of the millions of working uninsured Americans whose top priority is access to quality and affordable health care for their families."

SHOP is designed to:

• Allow small businesses and the self-employed to band together and spread the risk over a large number of participants in order to obtain lower premiums
• Provide tax credits for small business owners and the self-employed to offset contributions to employee premiums
• Ban health status rating in order to protect small businesses and the self-employed from large rate increases simply because one employee gets sick

What They Didn’t Think About

Almost half (48.7%) of uninsured individuals are between ages 19 and 34. Other statistics show these to be the healthiest americans and see paying premiums as a waste of money. That’s understandable because these are the folks who, if they have a job, are earning lower wages and dealing with setting up life away from mom and dad: buying a car, paying rent or buying a house, having children, etc. Nothing in SHOP offers an incentive to these people to buy health insurance.

The following chart based on information from the Kaiser Foundation shows what Americans are upset about or, at least, part of what upsets Americans about health insurance. During the Bush Administration (2001 – 2008) people with family coverage saw their cost of employer-provided health insurance increase from $149.00 per month to $280.00 per month, an 88% increase. Those with single coverage saw their premium increase from $30 a month to $60 a month, a 100% increase.

Now let’s do some simple math. An 88% increase spread over 8 years averages 11% per year. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report titled, May 2008 State Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates, the average wage in Arkansas is $33,930.00, or $2,827.50 per month. (continued below chart)

Yep, you gotta figure in the gasoline cost of gettin to work. If you only bought 15 gallons of gas per week you went from paying $89.51 in January 2001 to paying $200.72 in January 2008. Your wages went up $485.37 but we gotta subtract your health insurance premium increase of $165.00 so your disposable before-tax income was $320.37…but we gotta subtract that $200.72 you’re not paying to drive back and forth to work, leaving you $119.65 before taxes.

Think about these young, lower-salaried workers who are not earning that average Arkansas wage of $33,930. Their 2% annual raises would generate even less income but the price they would pay for health insurance and gasoline would be the same as everyone else. Oops, I think they went in the hole. Now, Senator Lincoln, how do you entice these folks to buy health insurance because you are giving their employer a break?

Let’s Talk About Employer Breaks

The chart below shows that the employee with family coverage is only paying 27% of the health insurance premium at $280.00 per month. Well, I called in my cipherer, Jethro Bodine and he said the total health insurance premium would be $1,037.00, leaving the employer to pay $757.00 each month, or $9,084.00 out of that $2,000.00 tax credit.

I sorta hate to say this, Senator Lincoln, but I think you and your Senate buddies need to hire Jethro to do your cipherin for you. I think you folks have been spending $9,000 for every $2,000 income for too long and have started believing other folks can do it just because you do. (continued below the chart)

Dear Senator Lincoln, et al, you said competition among insurance companies would lower the premiums…and I gotta admit, I got a great big ol’ belly laugh out of that. But I’ll defer to you if you can answer this question. How’s that been working out for every body else? And, how’s that been working out for gas prices, you know, what with Shell competing with Texaco and Exxon and whoever else is "competing" for our gasoline dollars?

It’s time to quit fancy-footin around this issue and get on with a single-payer system. Expand Medicare to take in these uninsured and divert some of that war money into the Medicare program. You can even negotiate some drug prices for Medicare while you’re at it.

Many of you regular readers will remember that I predicted something like this in my article, Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas Republican?!