This week, people across America will turn their eyes to the Supreme Court as it takes up the health law challenge that seeks to roll back the new rules enacted in health insurance reform. Here in Maine, we have a unique perspective on this given what we’ve been through in the last year.
As small business owners, health care is a perennial challenge for my husband and me. We own and operate a log truck. The most expensive way to buy insurance is on the individual market. Our policy has a $15,000 deductible.
I have a strong family history of both breast and colon cancers. For several years I have forgone screenings for both because it was a luxury we couldn’t afford. Under the Affordable Care Act mammograms and colonoscopies must be covered 100 percent by my insurance company.
Small business owners like me have seen what happens when you roll back the laws and take away insurance protections. Maine did that just last year with the passage of LD 1333 (now called Public Law 90), an insurance company-backed bill that rolled back consumer protection rules for health insurance.
Since the passage of the deregulation law, small businesses and other small group and individual market purchasers are being treated to rate hikes as much as 50 to 60 percent, thanks to LD 1333 which allows insurance companies to charge higher premiums based on age, geographic location and occupation.
I live in Aroostook County, am over 50, and my husband is in an occupation that will be considered high risk. LD 1333 has the potential to price us out of insurance entirely but for the Affordable Care Act which creates insurance exchanges that allow small businesses and individuals the opportunity to band together, pooling risk and building bargaining power to get a better deal from the insurance companies, just like big businesses have always done.
We’ve seen what happens when you put control of health care back in the hands of the insurance industry and give it the freedom to write its own rules. It’s not pretty. That’s why we need to keep moving forward on health reform nationally, and why we need the Supreme Court to do the right thing for small businesses and uphold the law.
The Affordable Care Act is already beginning to help small businesses across the country, and it’s still just getting started. Already, hundreds of thousands of small businesses have been able to benefit from a new tax credit that makes it more affordable to provide health coverage to employees. States have the opportunity and the resources to strengthen their reviews of insurance rate hikes and to modify or deny hikes that are deemed unreasonable.
Small business owners who have been denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions can get on a new pre-existing condition insurance plan, and in 2014 those pre-existing condition denials will be banned altogether. Why would anyone in their right mind want to take all that away — and push us back into the same broken system that has been a monkey on the back of small businesses for decades? It just doesn’t make sense to me.
Recent news reports have brought to light that the Florida small business owner who was one of the lead plaintiffs in the case against the health care law had to shut down her auto repair shop and file for bankruptcy last year with thousands of dollars in medical bills. If that’s not an argument for moving forward with health care reform, I don’t know what is.
There are a number of powerful forces lined up against health care reform. Insurance companies want to maintain their record profits, and so they gave millions of dollars to Super PACs and to buy the support of groups like the NFIB and the national Chamber of Commerce in order to twist the issue and make it seem like small businesses are on their side.
That’s why it’s important for small business owners to speak out, right now. We need to talk about our unaffordable premiums. We need politicians to know that insurance deregulation is a threat to the core of our local economies.
We need to keep pushing forward on health care reform. This is no time to roll back the law and put the insurance companies back in the driver’s seat. We just tried that in Maine and we’re paying dearly for it.
Shelly Mountain is a member of the Maine Small Business Coalition. She lives in Mapleton.
You are absolutely correct that we need to move forward. I’m not totally happy with the ACA but it seems to be the only game in town that is attempting to bring health coverage for all Americans. I would much prefer to see a universal single-payer plan that covers everyone.
As another small business owner I completely agree. Turning back the clock on health insurance is not an option.
Did you see the picture of young people in front of the Supreme Court building today actually praying that their fellow Americans will not get health care? I understand this can be a constitutional issue, but a religious one? Well, as one intimately familiar with colon cancer, I pray that you go get those mammograms and colonoscopies any way that you can. A colonoscopy is well over $7,000 at the hospital I use so I know what a financial burden it is. But it can keep you alive ! Can’t get much more basic than that.
As a fellow business owner I have to say you really do not get it. If the law holds up there will be NO private insurance. You understand money in money out your own a truck I owned 24 of them though I hauled freight not logs. If you own a insurance company and this law gets the go ahead and is not stopped no insurance company can stay open. The one big issue is the mandate that insurance companies must cover preexisting conditions. That alone spells the end of private insurance. If I told you the government juts passed a law that said you had to buy new tires for your truck every month ( you know but most folks have no idea how much truck tires cost) and you had to throw away the used ones each month as well how long you would be in business? How about if the government passed a law that said you have to take all loads offered to you no matter the rate? Would that be ok? Businesses exist to make money. If they can not make money the case to exist. If there is no insurance companies left the fed will create one. Then we are screwed.
How can you say that the insurance companies are going to go out of business? They are allowed to price their insurance at cost plus 20% for profit and overhead. Are you saying they should be entitled to more for profit and if they can’t have that then they will go out of business. Somehow I find that very difficult to believe that the ins. company would just fold their tent and go home.
You do understand how insurance companies work right? They get lots of people to pay them money they invest that money and if and when the insured needs to use there insurance they take some out and pay them.
The way this law is written insurance companies can no longer decide who they wish to sell to. They must by law take people who are already ill even those who are terminal. Think of it as I stated in the last post. If your house burns down and you do not have insurance do you think any company would or could sell you insurance to cover the fire AFTER the fact? NO that would be well stupid busniess 101. Why because nobody would buy it until it was to late. Then the companies would have no reserve to pay the claims.
If companies are forced to operate under these mandates they simply can not exist long term. For a few years maybe.
This is basic busniess you must have more coming in then going out.
Again the big problem with this is it goes way to far. This is a law that FORCES every American to buy a product. This is unprecedented in this nations history and goes against the whole of our very founding.
So if someone has pre-existing conditions or is sick I guess we all just hope they die soon as they cannot buy insurance now. If the Affordable Health Care Act goes into effect then all people not only could but must buy insurance and there should be enough healthy people to offset the additional cost of those with pre-existing conditions or sickness. That is why all people must purchase insurance.
I really don’t think you are giving the insurance companies enough credit, these people know how to make money and believe me they will find a way.
As far as the mandate is concerned it must be there or it doesn’t work and I for one am tired of paying through insurance premiums for those who are uninsured.
If the act gets thrown out we are back to the screwed up mess we have has for years. I know the AHCA is not perfect and needs changes but it is better than nothing.
My issue has nothing to do with sick people. My issue is 100 percent focused at the fact this law REQUIRES EVERY American to buy a product no matter if they want it or not.
That is not American. WE where founded on PERSON freedoms and LIMITED government. Never in the history of this the greatest country in the word has the government EVER trampled on the rights of the people like this before.
Sorry, Shirley. The (bloated, bureaucratic, inefficient) ends of PPACA do not justify its (clearly unconstitutional) means. Back to the drawing board.
Obama, Pelosi, and Reid will be seen as having cost us four years of any potential progress in affordable health care by ramming down PPACA on a party line vote through budget reconciliation. It deserves to fail, and they deserve to be voted out of office.
As a small business owner in Maine, the reason your insurance rates are so high is directly related to mandates similar to those in Obamacare. Obamacare is not moving anything forward, it is moving the entire country over a cliff. Ever since our guaranteed issue and community rating laws were put in place in 1993, the insurance rates have grown by more than 1000%. Insurance at the time was similar to a telephone bill. Then the politicians and mandates got involved in regulating what you can and cannot purchase. If you think Obamacare will save you money, you are a fool. Here is a good article from 2006: http://www.downeast.com/magazine/2006/february/maines-insurance-mess
Shelley, you are completely misinformed, but you have your Democrat talking points down. I too run a small business and have been forced to purchase insurance with a $10,000 deductible. However, once I am able to purchase the same insurance in New Hampshire, which I will be able to do thanks to Gov. LePage, my costs will drop by 50%. If I were able to purchase the same coverage in Ohio, my costs would drop 75%. Our costs in Maine are high because a) we have the oldest population in the country, b) our liberal politicians would not let us expand our market by purchasing insurance in other states, c) our liberal politicians have mandated that to do business in Maine, insurers must cover everything and d) our liberal politicians have put price controls on the amounts insurers can charge those who use the system the most (meaning the young and healthy must pay an amount similar to the old and/or unhealthy). These policies have caused Maine insurance rates to be the highest in the nation. Obamacare mirrors many of these policies, with the additional “benefit” of taking away any incentive for people to remain healthy. This is a recipe for not only massively higher costs, but loss to access of any health care.
Thank you Shelly for your informative and helpful letter. It would be hard to say it any better. It saddens me to see the first comment on here by tag is the same misinformation and propaganda we’re all too used to seeing.
When the last healthcare fiasco happened in Augusta I tried to communicate with our legislator who portrays himself as a small business owner but from his propaganda it’s clear he has been bought by big business.
As you pointed out: “LD 1333 has the potential to price us out of insurance entirely but for the Affordable Care Act which creates insurance exchanges that allow small businesses and individuals the opportunity to band together, pooling risk and building bargaining power to get a better deal from the insurance companies, just like big businesses have always done.”
This is one of the best features for so many of us.
The other issue that is so sad is how those with the vested interest in seeing this fail spew scare tactics and fear mongering about the mandate attacking our liberties–hogwash. How can people not see that part of what makes any insurance work is to have large numbers participating.
As you also pointed out: “millions of dollars to Super PACs and to buy the support of groups like the NFIB and the national Chamber of Commerce in order to twist the issue and make it seem like small businesses are on their side.”
Now there’s an example of the trickle down theory at it’s worst–those with the vested interest in seeing it fail, distribute lies and it trickles down to the sheep who clamp down on the bit of misinformation and run with it.
We are a logging truck family also and cannot even afford the catastrophic insurance you have. I don’t have to tell you how just the cost of fuel eats up $1,100 more per week than just a short time ago with no increase in rates. Many rates are the same now as they were when fuel was 89 cents a gallon. The cost of fuel has caused everything else to go up tremendously.
How much more do these out of touch and corrupt politicians and companies and their brainwashed sheep think we can take? When our businesses go under who will they blame then?
Just another gimme-gimme girl looking for her neighbors and her competitors to pick up the tab for HER healthcare.
Actually the government already does regulate when you must replace truck tires – when they become unsafe. Bald tires endanger the health and well-being of the public. You should already be aware of that if you own 24 trucks. The trucking industry is highly regulated. The trucks and their drivers are mandated to be safe to operate on a public roadway and there are penalties for those attempting to operate without complying with those mandates. If the only factor governing the trucking industry were profit (as you suggest it should be with the insurance industry), everyone’s safety would be at risk (as it is when insurance companies are allowed consider profits over human life by denying claims that risk their profits). Insurance companies are among the most profitable and the only industry that profits by not providing the service their customers pay them for.
Actually the government already does regulate when you must replace truck tires – when they become unsafe. Bald tires endanger the health and well-being of the public. You should already be aware of that if you own 24 trucks. The trucking industry is highly regulated. The trucks and their drivers are mandated to be safe to operate on a public roadway and there are penalties for those attempting to operate without complying with those mandates. If the only factor governing the trucking industry were profit (as you suggest it should be with the insurance industry), everyone’s safety would be at risk (as it is when insurance companies are allowed consider profits over human life by denying claims that risk their profits). Insurance companies are among the most profitable and the only industry that profits by not providing the service their customers pay them for.