The Ohio Healthcare Debate is on....or is it?

Governor Strickland has convened several advisory committees to explore Ohio’s healthcare crisis and assist him in developing a plan to extend healthcare coverage to 500,000 Ohioans currently doing without. Great idea! Certainly we welcome any advances in extending healthcare beyond the failed levels currently in place but there is one problem, 1.3 million Ohioans lack healthcare coverage and that number is equaled by the number of underinsured, those living on the edge of financial ruin and heading for the ranks of the working poor.

The problem is further complicated, in fact imbedded by the governor’s refusal to include any discussion of universal coverage, such as that offered by The Health Care For All Ohioans Act and the companion legislation before the Ohio Legislature, House Bill 186 and Senate Bill 168.

Appropriately phrased, it is time to stop putting band-aids on Ohio’s healthcare problems! As one of the underinsured I know the reality! I am a self-employed small businessman and I must shop for my own insurance without the benefit of meaningful group rates and faced with family members with pre-existing conditions. Can you say blacklist? In 2006 our fairly healthy family spent 19.5% of our pre-tax income on healthcare costs, and that’s just for absolutely necessary care! Due to high deductibles and co-pays and the limited range of covered services our family must carefully pick and choose how we spend our healthcare dollars and it rarely includes the preventative and wellness care that is integral to a sustainable solution and a healthy workforce.

Under the funding formula of The Health Care for All Ohioans Act, a funding formula that eliminates bureaucratic paper-shuffling and unreasonable profit, my family’s healthcare costs would be immediately reduced by 66%, and that’s even after my business contributes under the 3% gross receipts tax levied on businesses. As an employer I would then have access to purchase employer-provided coverage for any employees for no more than 3.85% payroll tax levied on employers. That’s complete, comprehensive patient-choice healthcare, no deductibles, no co-pays, no pre-existing conditions, no disqualifications, coverage extended to every Ohio resident or worker earning under $97,500 annually at no cost! As a businessman, an employer, a wage earner and family member let me say, that is a universal bargain I will stand in line to pay for!

If Governor Strickland is serious about putting an end to Ohio’s healthcare crisis he must include examination of the single-payer, universal coverage plan offered by The Health Care for All Ohioans Act. Please contact your Ohio legislators to request their support for HB 186 and SB 168 and call Janetta King, Policy Director for Gov. Ted Strickland, 614-466-3555, and let her know that you want these bills to be part of the Governor’s healthcare study.

The Colorado 208 Commission, charged with analyzing four healthcare models for their state found that only the single-payer universal plan resulted in savings, the others increased costs.

More info at www.spanohio.org

Tim Kettler