People need access to health insurance

According to recent stories in the Daily Herald, Congressional committees have come out with strong health care reform proposals. If enacted, these proposals will go a long way toward fixing America's broken health care system. As things stand now, people without employer-provided health insurance are forced to try to buy individual policies, but almost always, if the person has ever had a serious illness, coverage is denied or is available only at hugely inflated and unaffordable rates.

One of the biggest reasons health insurance is unaffordable for so many people and businesses, is that insurance companies are driven by Wall Street pressure to maximize profits. The way they do that, of course, is by increasing premiums and reducing benefits paid. The bills in Congress will do two things to fix that.

First, they will create a public insurance agency similar to Medicare that will provide real rate and benefit competition to the for-profit carriers. People who are happy with their current insurance plan will be able to keep it of course.

But people who are getting gouged on prices or skimped on benefits will be able to choose the public option. Faced with real competition for the first time, insurance companies will have to come up with better policies at lower costs.

This will give people a real choice.

Second, the proposed legislation specifies a minimum standard of benefits for all policies and a maximum percent that insurance companies will be able to include in their premiums for administrative costs, overhead and profits. That way Wall Street brokers will not be able to drive the insurance carriers to make exorbitant profits at the expense of the people they insure. It is time to pass these bills so people have guaranteed access to medical services at process they can afford.

Hugh Brady

Palatine