Talk about a human interest angle! In “It’s Not Just the Uninsured,” (NY Times, 11/17/07), Bob Herbert cuts to the quick in the health insurance debate by focusing on the really important question: what about annual benefit limits?
In his article, he discusses the story of the Hightowers, who discover when trying to save their daughter from a particularly pernicious cancer bout, that their annual maximum benefit on a $3 million policy was only $75,000 per year. So, in trying to treat the cancer, the family reached their annual max and were forced to take on incredible debt.
With every Democratic candidate pointing to their health care plan as the very best the nation has seen, it is surprising that none have really addressed this issue. This past week, in Austin, the Travis County Health Care District was discussing an effort to provide a Small Business Owner Health Insurance Risk Pool, with a $200,000 annual maximum per employee. Everyone sitting round the (very large) table seemed to think this was a reasonable cap, but now that I give it some real thought I must admit that I have no idea what is a reasonable annual max. I suppose that answer would be different for a single male in his 20s, a 35 year old woman considering in vitro fertilization, or a retiree with diabetes and a weak hip bone. It seems that any one of these health care consumers could face serious debt with one serious hospitalization because of too low an annual maximum. At what point does health insurance debt reach the same level of national crisis in the public mind that subprime mortgage bankruptcies now commands?
-Lonny Stern | Communications Director
Lonny,
I really appreciate your thinking on this one and the questions you posed.
You hit the nail on the head.
How anyone, in good conscience, could put the same annual max on the average younger person and the average older person is beyond me.