Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Health Care Bill Will Cripple Business Owners

The proposed health care reform bill will seriously harm entrepreneurs, freelancers, business owners, starving artists and part-time workers. We need a plan that lets people self-insure for the small stuff but protects us from catastrophic health care costs -- in other words, a high deductible plan. That is the only plan that is reasonable for people who can barely afford insurance now. It also makes people think twice before approving lots of tests or running to the doctor for the sniffles. It puts control in the hands of the consumer. But the current plan outlaws high deductible plans. This is crazy.

In states like NY where high deductible plans are outlawed, insurance for a part-time worker or freelance individual is $1,000 per month. In states like CT where they are allowed, the cost is $100 per month. For my daughter who is a nursery school teacher, even $100 per month is hard. She lives in MA, where her premiums are 40% higher than CT and are rising at 16% annually, even with a high deductible plan. (So much for Massachusetts's claim that costs are under control there. And, no, she cannot get subsidized insurance from the state. They turned her down on a bureaucratic technicality.) She can barely make ends meet. This is not right.

The new bill is misguided. It will have highly detrimental, unintended consequences that are far reaching across the economy as it puts health insurance further out of reach for those not employed in a corporation or government system. And it will make people even more insulated from the true costs of medical care. This will not help get costs under control.

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