Terry Kille, a 54-year-old single woman in Colorado, makes $40,000 a year. After paying a modest mortgage and a car payment, she can’t afford health insurance.Kille’s employer cannot afford health care for his employees, and her only alternative is private medical insurance. “A woman my age would have to pay $200 a month for a health care policy with a $3,000 deductible, meaning coverage will cost me $5,400 a year before I receive any insurance benefits.Kille is not alone.In a November news release, Sen. Ken Salazar points to statistics showing 48 million Americans are uninsured – most of them do not have coverage because the average annual premium for employer-sponsored family coverage is $10,000.The under-insured represent the other half of those caught in a growing health care dilemma. A 37-year-old woman, who wants to remain anonymous, has a disabled husband, and works to help support her family of five. She can only afford catastrophic insurance coverage for herself and her children. Her deductible is $3,000 a year, per person. The plan covers none of the family’s normal medical bills. “It’s just there in case of a major illness or accident, and I guess I’ll just have to charge the deductible on my credit card, if it ever comes down to it,” she said.Some pay big bucks to ensure their assets against loss in case of a major medical problem. “My husband and I pay $1,500 a month for medical insurance,” said an anonymous small business owner in Falcon. “You could say we’re banking on a catastrophic illness. But really, what other choice do we have?” Fifty percent of all bankruptcy filings were the result of medical bills, according to the National Coalition on Health Care Web site.”During my conversations with Coloradoans over the last 10 months, whether in cities or in small towns, health care is consistently at the top of their concerns,” Salazar said. The National Coalition reports health care spending reached $1.7 trillion in the U.S. in 2004, but experts agree the system is “riddled with inefficiencies, excessive administrative expenses, inflated prices, poor management, inappropriate care, waste and fraud.”There is still no single solution to rising health care costs. Some government officials favor price controls while others want a free-market approach. Public health advocates think if Americans adopt a healthier lifestyle, health care costs will plummet.Salazar and Arizona Sen. John McCain are heading a 10-member bi-partisan national commission on health care to study government and private health care programs. They want the commission to provide practical remedies that Congress can address and eventually enact. The commission, when completed, will make recommendations concerning the growing number of uninsured and the rising costs of health care and insurance premiums.”It is not a Democratic or Republican problem,” Salazar said. “It is a national problem that we must solve together.”For more information, visit www.nchc.org; www.salazar.senate.gov.
