Our health care system is broken, but for Virginia’s small, family businesses, health care reforms that saddle them with higher taxes and burdensome mandates would make things worse, not better. Unless changes lead to more affordable insurance, more choices for employers and employees, and more competition among health plans, reform legislation will hurt small business—and that, in turn, will hurt all of Virginia.

About 95,500 more Virginians have lost both their jobs and their health insurance this year, according to Families USA, a nonprofit organization pushing for universal health coverage. “That’s why health-care reform is so important,“ Ron Pollack, executive director of the Washington-based group, said during a telephone briefing with reporters yesterday.

It is open-enrollment season at your work. Take some time to educate yourself about the various health-plan options your employer offers. When selecting a plan, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, compare:

• Premiums. Avoid basing your decision only on the premium. Lower premiums typically mean care comes with higher out-of-pocket costs through deductibles, co-insurance or co-payments.

If such terms as deductibles, health savings accounts, flexible spending accounts and preferred provider networks are swirling in your head, then it must be open-enrollment period at work. Most jobs that provide health-insurance benefits give employees a chance annually to change health-insurance plans or health-plan options. Fall is that time for many companies with the new benefit year starting Jan. 1.

Co-insurance: Portion of incurred medical expenses, usually a fixed percentage, that the patient must pay out of pocket. Co-payment (co-pay): The flat rate that managed-care subscribers pay for a provider’s medical service. May also refer to a percentage of a cost that the patient must pay under an indemnity plan. Deductible: Amount of covered expenses that must be incurred and paid by an insured (enrollee/member) before benefits are payable by the insurer.

Job loss or the fear of it has pushed more people to use their employer-sponsored health insurance before they lose it. Major health insurers have seen their medical costs rise in recent quarters, in part because people covered by employer-sponsored plans have rushed to use services before their benefits are cut off. Visit your doctor to get an assessment of your overall health. Know your blood pressure and cholesterol numbers. Have the doctor perform a skin-cancer screening.

The cost of employer-sponsored health insurance rose modestly again this year, but researchers predict a return to bigger increases that may eventually produce crippling premiums if left unchecked. Meanwhile, more workers with single coverage are facing high-deductible plans that make them pay $1,000 or more out of pocket before coverage starts, according to a report released yesterday by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust, a nonprofit research organization affiliated with the American Hospital Association.

When compared with other states, Virginia does better than average on many health indicators. Some examples:

• The state’s uninsured rate—about 14.1 percent—is near the middle of a spectrum with Massachusetts at one end with 7.9 percent uninsured, and Texas at the other end with 24.8 percent uninsured. Nationally, about 15.5 percent of Americans lack health insurance.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s first estimate of how many people don’t have health insurance finds the highest Virginia perecentages in the state’s college towns.

Health insurer WellPoint Inc., owner of Anthem, says its profit fell 7.6 percent in the second quarter as it felt the effect of investment losses.

A leader of about 60 protesters at insurance giant Anthem was taken into custody today after entering the building to ask for someone in the company to respond to his questions about rising premiums.

Virginia took center stage in the national debate over health-care coverage yesterday when Debby Smith rose to tell her story to President Barack Obama. “Good afternoon, Mr. President,“ the 53-year-old resident of Appalachia, in Southwest Virginia, said at the president’s health-care forum at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale.

The nation’s health-care numbers are enough to make you sick:

• Nearly 47 million Americans are without health insurance.

• The current system costs $2.3 trillion a year—the most expensive in the world by far—and delivers the 37th-best quality of care, according to the World Health Organization.

As the debate intensifies over revamping the U.S. health-care system, Bon Air resident Cindy Greer understands the fear of change. But as a registered nurse who has worked at a free clinic and as a mother whose son is still recovering from a bad motorcycle wreck last year, Greer has seen the current system’s flaws. That’s why she plans to travel with other Virginia Organizing Project supporters to Washington tomorrow to rally for universal health coverage.

http://www.virginia-organizing.org
(804) 261-7497
  Health Care for America Now!
http://healthcare09.org/