Health care reform: a personal need

News and Observer political reporter Rob Christensen wrote about health care reform in Sunday's column in an unusual way — he provided first-person testimony about why reform of the health insurance system is needed. I recommend the column to everyone involved in the health care reform debate, including those who have carried signs proclaiming "Hands Off My Health Care."

Christensen's point is that even those of us who have good health insurance and are satisfied with our coverage are only one pink slip, one uncovered procedure or one pre-existing condition away from financial disaster. Because health insurance is tied to employment for most Americans, losing a job (and there are millions of us in that position now) can mean loss of health insurance as well as loss of income, and that situation can easily turn a middle-class lifestyle into bankruptcy. Our system of having employers pay health-insurance premiums came about by accident. When wages were frozen, unions discovered they could bargain for health-care benefits even if they couldn't bargain for raises. The unions' triumph turned into a nearly universal expectation that employers would provide health insurance. It's an illogical and inefficient system. After all, employers don't pay your homeowner's or car insurance premiums. Tying health insurance to jobs discourages job changes, and people without jobs find it hard to get competitively priced coverage.

The health care shouting match, which is substituting for civilized debate, raging across this country often overlooks the simple situations Christensen describes. Advocates for health care legislation often cite the 47 million uninsured in this country, and opponents tout their fear of changing a system they find satisfactory. But the greatest danger in the current system lies in the disaster awaiting anyone of modest or comfortable means who loses his job or whose employer drops or limits health insurance coverage.