Business Owners Stand Up Against Kirk’s Health Care Bait and Switch
Illinois Main Street Alliance leaders held a press conference outside Representative Mark Kirk’s Waukegan office on Wednesday. They pressed the Representative to get real on health care, making the point that his health care legislation does little to remedy the problems that small business owners in the 10th district face.
Please see the coverage below, and make sure to contact the Representative. Ask him to support HR 3200.
Reaction mixed on Kirk’s town hall meeting
Business owners, families weigh in on health care
August 27, 2009
By FRANK ABDERHOLDEN fabderholden@scn1.com
Proponents of the "America’s Affordable Health Choices Act" held a news conference Wednesday outside U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk’s office in Waukegan in response to his town hall meetings Monday.
"It doesn’t go far enough," said James Meredith, referring to Kirk’s proposals. Meredith is an organizer with Illinois Main Street Alliance, a project of Citizen Action Illinois, which is a coalition of small businesses in the state looking for affordable costs, guaranteed coverage and real choices.
"It moves us in the wrong direction," he said, referring to Kirk’s use of tax credits and Associated Health Plans that allow small companies to group together to buy insurance for their employees. Meredith said the problem is that this doesn’t improve the quality of health care coverage and just subsidizes industry’s profits.
Dan Sherry, owner of Kennedy’s Creative Awards in Waukegan, spoke on behalf of small businesses with David Boris, owner of Hel’s Kitchen in Northbrook, and Jan Wood, who runs JP Wood Martial Arts in Palatine.
"For years I never missed a payment. Then I missed one and they cut my family off," he said. When he tried to find another plan it was difficult because he had a pre-existing condition: high cholesterol.
"It’s extraordinarily difficult to find health insurance," said Kennedy, who was featured in a national advertisement for health care reform. The ad can be seen at mainstreetalliance.org .
Wood said one her sons has a seizure disorder, and with the right medications, he has been seizure free for four years. "But no insurance company will ever cover my son because of his pre-existing condition," she said.
She said her family’s health care insurance costs $1,200 a month and has a $10,000 deductible. "That’s $24,000 out of pocket expense per year before any health care," said Wood.
"Basically we are held hostage by insurance companies," she said. "It’s time for government to establish an option," she said.
Boris complained that Kirk is promoting "fuzzy math" about how many people are actually uninsured. Kirk has said there are 7.5 million who really need health insurance, because of the 44 million uninsured, 14 million are undocumented and 23 million are between age 19 and 30.
Boris said that by using the same source of numbers (the Lewin Group owned by United Healthcare) that Kirk did, they found that 87 million didn’t have health insurance in 2007-2008 and 66 million were without insurance for 6 months or longer.
"It’s time for Mark Kirk to put aside partisan politics that is threatening to derail the most substantial health care reform this country has attempted," he said.
Great Read! Looking forward to more on this subject Bookmarked your blog. Was just wondering if anybody here could point me to some related material. Thanks in advance.