Opinion

Not just poor are without insurance

Posted April 22, 2009 11:00 pm

I am a college-educated professional, I work with Fortune 500 companies doing IT consulting, and I make a generous salary. Yet my employer does not offer health insurance. And because of pre-existing conditions in my family, we have been turned down for private insurance. Even if I paid them $5,000 a month in premiums, no insurance company will take us.

This is not a problem that only affects the poor. This is not a problem that only affects the elderly (I'm 40; my kids are 13, 15 and 19). This is a problem that can affect anybody, at the discretion of the insurance companies. Any one of your readers could find themselves in exactly the same situation tomorrow morning.

The only way my family will get health insurance is if the government offers an option for me to buy in at my own expense, which I am eager to do, to the federal health benefits program. A public health care option with non-subsidized, member-paid premiums will relieve me and millions of other Americans in exactly the same situation of paying out of my own pocket for medical expenses, without using one dime of taxpayer money. Voice your support to your congressman.

Tim Currell

St. Charles

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