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September 10, 2008

Many here kicked out of health coverage


By GORDON BONNYMAN

Politics continue to undermine the health coverage of Tennessee families. And when politicians take us backward on something as crucial as health care, real people take the fall.

We got a reminder of that reality when the U.S. Census Bureau released its recent report on the number of people without health insurance. It takes a while for the bureau to compile the data, so the new report, which covers the period 2006-2007, was already somewhat dated when it came out recently.

The report contained good news and bad news. The good news was that the number of uninsured Americans declined slightly in 2007. The bad news is that the good news is old news. The weakening economy has since driven the ranks of the uninsured, most of whom are in working families, above 46 million people.
The bad news reaches far beyond the uninsured. Americans have traditionally gotten coverage through their jobs, but employer-provided coverage is eroding steadily. The new report confirmed that the decline continued even before the economy turned sour. Only 59 percent of Americans got health coverage from their employer in 2006-2007. Among those who still do, there are so many coverage limits and exclusions that, even with insurance, many people are only one accident or illness away from bankruptcy.

TennCare went the other way

For Tennesseans, there was more bad news in the report. Tennessee did worse than most other states. In 2006-2007, a majority of states offset declines in private insurance by expanding their Medicaid and children's health insurance programs. But Tennessee went the other way, eliminating TennCare coverage for over 200,000 Tennesseans. TennCare was a lifeline for workers whose jobs did not provide insurance, and for people with pre-existing conditions that no insurance would cover.

Incompetent but politically connected TennCare HMOs, plus bad decisions by state officials, drove up TennCare's costs. Instead of holding the HMOs accountable and improving management, officials cut off many thousands of working Tennesseans whose only fault was to have cancer, heart disease or some other serious condition. The impact on people's lives has been devastating.

State officials' bad decisions affect us all. The TennCare cuts returned to Washington $1.2 billion a year in federal funds that supported Tennessee's health system. The loss of federal funds leaves many rural hospitals and public facilities like Meharry General struggling. The costs of indigent care must now be covered by local taxpayers and private insurance premiums. It isn't just state officials who let us down. Federal officials enact laws that let insurance companies dump people when they get sick. Congress allows drug companies excessive profit at Medicare patients' expense. Americans deserve better.

The Census Bureau report shows that our nation and our state continue to fall backward in offering everyone access to affordable health care. Until we demand more of our leaders, we and our neighbors will keep on paying the price.