Published: August 19, 2008 05:35 pm         

FLASHPOINT: Reforms will lower health care cost, provide insurance to more Hoosiers

Throughout the cities and towns of our state, Hoosiers continue to endure layoffs and factory closings. According to the latest numbers released by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, Indiana saw the largest increase in unemployment in the nation from May to June. The same report found that Indiana lost 43,800 jobs from June 2007 to June 2008.

These lost jobs took away more than paychecks — they took away health benefits as well.

The cost of health care in Indiana is impacting our ability to remain economically competitive — and we cannot wait to take action any longer. We must make quality health care affordable to more businesses and Hoosier workers.

From 2000-2006, Indiana’s health care premiums rose 7.6 times as fast as Hoosier working families’ earnings. As a result many Hoosier businesses, both large and small, are being forced to choose between hiring workers and continuing to pay for skyrocketing health insurance premiums. This is a choice they should never have to make.

Of the 135,000 private-sector businesses in Indiana today, about 90,000 have fewer than 50 employees. Of that group only 34 percent are able to offer their employees coverage. This is wrong. The price of your health insurance should not be determined by the size of your company or your employer.

As governor I will work with the legislature to pass and sign into law a requirement that health insurance companies doing business in Indiana provide pooling options. In other words, I will make it a real option for families and small businesses to join together and buy health insurance in bulk, thereby dramatically lowering the cost of coverage.

With new leadership, new priorities and new thinking, we can bring down the cost of health care and make it more accessible to those who are going without.

We must do this to not only help our economy grow, but because extending quality health care to all Hoosiers is the moral thing to do.

During all or part of 2006-2007, 1.75 million Hoosiers under the age of 65 — about 32 percent of Indiana’s — were uninsured. More than 60 percent of these Hoosiers went without insurance for six months or more during this period.

These Hoosier families found themselves one illness away from financial ruin. Nearly 7,800 Hoosiers filed for personal bankruptcy in just the last three months of 2007. A national study of bankruptcies found that nearly half of all bankruptcies are caused by a costly medical event.

Indiana can do better than this, and with my plan, we will.

— Jill Long Thompson

Democratic candidate for governor, Indiana