Reform is only hope for affordable care

So you are among the lucky ones who have employer provided insurance and believe that you are very well protected and have no reason to support health care reform.

I was like you a long time ago. Then, when I reached my mid-fifties, I was offered a reasonable severance package and started my own home-based consulting business. My single biggest expense was our health insurance premium. It started out at about $500 per month in 2000 for my family coverage, with a high deductible. By 2008, it was over $1,000 per month for lousy coverage. Some years we were notified of 18 percent increases with no place to turn. We avoided seeing doctors.

The Kaiser foundation recently reported that premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose to $13,375 annually for family coverage this year. The cost is much higher if you tried to get it on your own. Since 1999, premiums have gone up a total of 131 percent, far more rapidly than workers wages or inflation. Kaiser estimates the annual premium cost for employer-based family coverage will top $30,000 by 2019.

The main reason this incredible phenomenon is happening is because there is little or no competition in health care, and health insurance companies feel no pushback from employees who have employer-based coverage.

I urge you in the name of your fellow Americans who cannot afford the $1000 per month premium, people with chronic conditions, the unemployed, those who are over 50 and live in daily fear of losing their jobs to support the administration's health insurance reform initiatives.

Allwyn Baptist

Arlington Heights