Insurance Quotes Central

Posts Tagged ‘health insurance quotes’

One of the big political tennis balls being bounced around Washington these days is the issue of health care coverage for Americans. After a while, listening to the debate gets tiresome and maybe a little irritating, but there seems to be an important factor being left out. Unmarried adults. We always hear about the need for families to have health insurance, especially when young children are involved, but we almost never hear of the twenty and thirty-something singles.

What if we started saying as part of the debate, “Young, working, single adults need to get individual health insurance today.” What would be the reaction? I’m not sure, but I do know that there are millions of people in this category who are new to the work force and are working jobs with less than stellar benefits. For most entry-level positions, individual health insurance is not part of the package. In cases where it is, the coverage may be minimal as a way of keep employer costs down. It’s not uncommon for the kid fresh out of college to take his first job and not have health insurance.

Quite often, young people in their twenties and thirties aren’t very concerned that they don’t have health coverage. After all, they are in the prime of their lives with minimal responsibilities and filled with optimism for the future. Their health is not a concern and they’re used to rebounding quickly after a routine cold or flu. Chronic disease or debilitating injuries don’t seem to be on their radar, as they consider those things usually to be reserved for older people.

The issues of health care and health insurance garnered plenty of attention and legislative activity in 2008. The volume of the activity clearly shows that lawmakers know that health care and insurance are issues that are of utmost import to Americans. Fewer and fewer can afford coverage as insurance premiums and prescriptons go through the roof and deductibles still continue to rise. In Washington DC recently, a health care forum was sponsored by two non-partisan organizations which brought to the fore that the general consensus amongst Senate staffers is that there is an expectation that major health care reform can be achieved in 2009.

Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), himself being treated for a brain tumorr, recently gave up his seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee in order to focus on health care, stating that it was “the opportunity of a lifetime” to finally get a plan enacted. Speaking at the forum, John McDonough, a health care aide to Kennedy stated that the Senator is committed to achieving reform and is very confident of its ability to pass.

The Republican Health Policy Director for the Senate Finance Committee, Charles Clapton stated that there was strong Republican support for getting the plan done, but that money is constricted by over a trillion dollar deficit. There would be competition for the funding, but with a system wherein private plans were delivering the benefits, we would see the most innovation. Similarly, Dr. Mark L. Hayes, the GOP Advisor for Health Policy on the Senate Finance Committe stressed the necessity for bipartisanship if a bill is to get passed, and that waiting 15 years to enact a plan will cause severe problems as opposed to solving the problem now.

Last year, 2008, brought an unusually large amount of attention to the issues of health care and health insurance. This high level of activity speaks directly to the interest level that the public holds regarding health in this country these days. And when the public shows interest in a topic, legislators are generally swayed soon thereafter.

There were some health related milestones in the food world in 2008. McDonald’s announced they would stop using trans fat laden oils to cook their french fries and baked goods in all their U.S. and Canada restaurants. And California became the first state in the nation to ban trans fats in restaurants. In more good news for arteries, dark chocolate was determined to be of value in lowering blood pressure and increasing blood circulation.

On the state level there was much activity. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, after pushing aggressively for a comprehensive health care reform, vetoed legislation that would have provided a single payer system. It was his second veto in three years of a similar plan. Across the country in Florida, Governor Charlie Crist was able to pass a law that will provide residents with affordable coverage through a new Florida health insurance program. Meanwhile, Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle axed the state’s universal health insurance program for children, due to budget constraints. And in Massachusetts, due to skyrocketing costs, lawmakers were forced to raise premiums for the state-subsidized health insurance program.