Health Care

Hartford Courant - January 12, 2009

It wasn't that Debbie Hunsinger didn't know about the lump in her breast. She did. And it wasn't that she didn't care about her health. Back when she had health insurance, she never missed a physical.

But a divorce left her without health coverage, and although she owned a deli in South Meriden, Hunsinger couldn't afford health insurance. She couldn't afford to see a doctor, either, so she decided not to deal with the lump. At the time, it was pretty small.

But by the time she finally got it checked out, about six months later at a free screening, it wasn't small.

And the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and right arm.

If the cancer had been caught earlier, if she hadn't been one of the more than 300,000 people in Connecticut without health insurance, Hunsinger, 47, figures she might be healthy and back at work by now. Instead, she's facing dozens more rounds of chemotherapy and radiation and an uncertain prognosis.

Hunsinger thinks something must change. "I would hate to have anybody have to go through this just because they don't have health insurance," she said.

Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, in his capacity as a senior member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) released a statement following a hearing on the nomination of former Senator Tom Daschle to Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. In the portion of the statement excerpted below, Sen. Dodd begins making the case for health care reform by citing facts about how the broken system fails to fully serve his constituents in Connecticut:

The case for reform of our health care system has never been stronger. Many say Americans have the best health care in the world and for many Americans that may be true. But how effective can that system be if it is unaffordable and inaccessible to millions of Americans? In [Connecticut], health care premiums have shot up 42 percent in the last 8 years – in the last two years, nearly 1 in 10 of our people have had no health insurance at all.

And how can we have a world-class health care system if high-quality care and value are inadequate in many parts of the country despite $2 trillion in annual health care spending?

At the same time, our health care system is failing millions of our nation’s children and adolescents. The U.S. is a leader among industrialized nations in infant mortality, affecting African American babies at more than two times the rate as non-Hispanic white babies. That is unacceptable.

Our system is creating a generation of children who may well be the first generation of American children who will live shorter, less healthy lives than their parents. That, too, is unacceptable.

This is happening, in part, because our system is driven not by the prevention of illness and disability but the treatment of illness and disability. It’s completely backwards – and it has to change. And with [Tom Daschle's] leadership and the work of this committee, I believe it can and will change.

(emphasis added)

You can read the full statement and watch a video of the hearing at this link.

Senator Dodd will also be kicking off a listening tour in state called Connecticut Prescriptions for Change starting in East Hartford on January 23rd. Details here.

Obama's transition team recently started the first of a series of online discussions to get our input on the issues that we face in America. The first discussion is about health care, making it clear that this is a priority for the new President.

_{Health Care for America Now is commonly abbreviated as HCAN}

Many of you have shared your concerns about the private insurance industry and rising health care costs with your congressional representatives, at Health Care for America Now rallies, and at public hearings all across Connecticut.

President-Elect Barack Obama, by starting this conversation on his transition website, has sent a clear message that he wants to hear our thoughts and concerns about the health care system in this country. It's important that he hears a call to fix the broken health care system from all of us, because the insurance and drug company lobbyists are already swarming Congress to protect their profitable business models.

You can click here to join the discussion about the future of health care in America. Leave a comment, and tell President-Elect Barack Obama that in 2009 you want quality, affordable health care we all can count on!