Margaret Langan: Idahoans Need Health Care
Friday, December 4, 2009
(Canyon County Democrats)
Idaho Press Tribune, Friday, Dec. 4 by
Margaret Langan
Idahoans need health care reform
urgently
As the U.S.
Senate gets ready to take up health care
reform, I’d like to remind our Idaho
congressional delegation of the health care
picture right here at home. Eighty-eight
percent of Idahoans who are uninsured have
jobs. The fact is most of them can’t afford
sky-high insurance premiums.
Our
unemployment rate is on the rise — 11.5 percent
in Canyon County. When people lose their jobs,
an entire family can lose health care coverage.
Drug prices
are soaring and continue to increase, leaving
older people struggling to afford needed
prescription medications. More people are
getting stuck in the Medicare Part D “doughnut
hole” where they are forced to pay 100 percent
of their drug costs. Many have to skip them
because of the cost (27 percent in Idaho fell
into the coverage gap last year.)
As part-time
employees brace for health insurance premium
increases up to 10 times what they pay now, our
state retirees are
getting ready to lose their promised state
health care and be forced into Medicare, which
some may not be able to afford.
Our elected
officials have a job to do in Congress — check
politics at the door, do what’s right and
what’s needed for your constituents and support
health care reform.
