Fitzsimon File

Thursday brought more troubling news about the health care crisis in North Carolina that makes it more important than ever that policymakers at the state and federal level finally get serious about addressing it.

A new report from the Economic Policy Institute in Washington finds that the percentage of non-elderly people in North Carolina covered by health insurance provided by their employer or spouse’s employer dropped to 61 percent in 2005. The rate was 68 percent in 2000.

The NC Budget & Tax Center’s John Quinterno points out that the drop translates to 175,000 fewer people in the state with job-based insurance. Some of those people are now covered by a government health program like Medicaid or Health Choice that covers children, but many have joined the ranks of the uninsured that now includes more than 1.3 million state residents.

The report raises all sort of issues for policymakers, first of which is why they don’t seem to be paying attention. The health care crisis is hardly a secret. Businesses constantly complain about health care costs and polls show that North Carolinians believe it is one of the top issues that they believe elected officials should address.

As you read here Wednesday, the right wing’s only solution is the illogical health savings account idea that the Government Accountability Office says is primarily a tax shelter for the rich. Many progressives seem gun shy about revisiting the common sense idea of universal coverage, fearful of being labeled liberals, or worse.

The ultimate answer must come at the federal level but there are plenty of ways that state lawmakers can help. The most obvious step would be to enact a high risk insurance pool that is already in place in more than 30 states to help people with serious health problems afford some coverage. The plan passed the House last session, but the Senate refused to take it up.  

The state should also explore expanding the Health Choice program that currently covers children from low-income families to the parents of the children who qualify. If we are trying to help poor kids in the state, it seems like a good idea to make sure their parents can see a doctor too to stay healthy enough to take care of their children.

Lawmakers should finally stop discriminating against people with mental illness and pass mental health parity to force insurance companies to cover mental illness the same way they currently cover physical illnesses.

Finally, state leaders need to fend off the constant attacks on Medicaid, Health Choice and other government programs from the rabid anti-tax crowd.  Current programs don’t do enough, but they are working well in most cases and need to be adequately funded, not subject to budget cuts when there is a downturn in the state’s economy.

It would also help if state officials would send a message to Washington demanding that Congress address the health care crisis at the federal level. The words “universal coverage” must be part of that message and the centerpiece of any federal solution.

But none of those things are going to happen until state leaders start paying attention to the problem that this latest report identifies again. North Carolina has a health care crisis and people are suffering as a result. That is beyond dispute. Now we need some leadership to address it.   

 

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 28th, 2006 at 2:35 pm and is filed under Fitzsimon File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.