Chad asked:

When Cary Hicks lost his group health insurance earlier this year, he was floored by how much an individual policy could cost him because he is a diabetic.

“I was looking for anything,” said Hicks, who runs a small construction company. “I didn’t have insurance. I couldn’t afford any.”

That’s when Hicks discovered a new public health insurance program created by the North Carolina legislature. He now pays $550 a month in premiums — not cheap, but one-third of what a similar policy would have cost him in the private market.

As Congress debates how to overhaul the nation’s health-care system, North Carolina has dipped its toe into the public-option debate. Those who can’t find affordable health insurance from private companies because they have cancer, heart disease or other ailments now have the option of buying insurance from a high-risk pool set up by the state.

The program, called Inclusive Health, is little known. It has enrolled 2,050, only half of the number expected. But an estimated 1.4 million North Carolinians don’t have health insurance.

Inclusive Health is aimed largely at helping middle-class people who wake up one morning and find themselves without health insurance. Enrollees have either been turned down by private insurance companies, have lost their jobs or don’t have access to Medicare or Medicaid.

Hicks, 54, of Garner, said he had never given much thought to health insurance before this year. He was covered under his wife’s policy until January, when her employer, Corporate Press, a 40-year-old Raleigh printing company, went out of business. His construction company, which mainly builds fences, was too small to afford health insurance.

Bad luck sometimes comes in bunches. Hicks, who had not been hospitalized in 12 years, got an infected elbow in March, and the infection spread to his bloodstream. It put him the hospital for a week — a $12,000 out-of-pocket expense.

After a taste of being uninsured, Hicks went shopping for a health insurance policy. But because he is a severe diabetic, and therefore viewed as a high risk, the cost was prohibitive. Hicks said the state’s biggest insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, which has 86 percent of individual health insurance policies in the state, offered a policy with a $1,648 monthly premium. Hicks said that was unaffordable at a time when his household had gone from two incomes to one.

“We’ve got to eat, and we’ve got a house payment,” Hicks said. “It was just too much to handle.”

He saw a brief item in The News & Observer about the start of a new state health insurance program. Within a month, he had enrolled in Inclusive Health. His premium is $550 per month, and it covers his three daily shots of insulin, his blood pressure medicine and other medical costs.

North Carolina became the 35th state to create a high-risk health insurance plan in 2007, after a decade of debate in the legislature. It began offering insurance policies in January.

The measure had the backing of health groups, physicians, hospitals and insurance agents.

Adam Searing, a health-care consumer expert, said North Carolina’s high-risk pool is relatively industry friendly compared with those in other states. It includes a restriction that the risk pool charge premiums 175 percent of what private insurers charge, so as not to compete with private markets. And it provides no subsidies for the poor.

While it helps middle-class people without insurance, it is of little use

Alex Avram asked:


Ronald Reagan once said:

“Freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream; we have to fight for it and protect it, and then hand it to them so that they shall do the same, or we’re going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free.”

As you may have surmised from reading any newspaper or watching any news channel, Socialized Medicine is shaping to be the issue of our day.

Let’s just correct a few misconceptions. Universal Healthcare is not “free”. Either you, your children or your children’s children will be paying for health care that you consume today. Look at it this way, would you rather trust your healthcare to you – who can go out and shop around for the best healthcare that you can find, from companies which need to compete against each other in order to provide the best service possible in a country with the best doctors in the world, or would you rather receive your healthcare from a single entity (the government) which is not required to run efficiently nor has ever show any inclination to running efficiently? Go wait in line at the DMV and picture yourself doing the same thing while bleeding, having trouble breathing or worse, experiencing symptoms which lead you to believe that you’re having a heart attack?

Just because citizens are uninsured does not mean that they cannot receive health care. Nonprofits and government-run hospitals provide services to those who don’t have insurance, and it is illegal to refuse emergency medical service because of a lack of insurance. In fact, the oath that doctors take upon donning their scrubs for the first time mandates just this action.

Like Social Security, any government socialized benefit will eventually be assumed that it is a right rather than a government provided social benefit. This makes it essentially impossible to ever remove. This isn’t a scare tactic, it is reality. With this in mind, why the rush towards socialized medicine? If it’s really permanent, then shouldn’t we take the time to know the pros and the cons of the system?

As I type this, Barack Obama is pushing to rush this through Congress without giving us, Americans, a hint to how he’s planning on paying for this. Is this what we want? Hastily-made decisions which are done for political reasons under the guise of altruism? Or would we prefer a decision made after all the facts are presented to the American people and we’re able to decide what we want after careful consideration of all pros and cons?

It’s important to get all the facts straight, which is why during these times is crucial to be as informed as possible. One area that you can do this is by partaking in healthy debate with your fellow citizens. One such place is a Political Forum – Political Hotwire. It’s the place where I visit daily and enjoy debating current events. Check em out.