I won't be able to afford Health Care if rates keep going up.

[berni_mccoy]

I have two children with type-1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease that destroys the insulin producing cells in the pancreas. There is no cure. The only treatment is a life-long dependency on insulin and strict monitoring of diet and blood sugar. To get an idea of what life is like with type-1 you can watch the video in my sig line. There are many complications that can arise and their medical care is very expensive. If there was ever a gap in our coverage, they would not be insurable. And we could not afford the direct costs of their care. The only thing that has kept them covered is the fact that I was able to afford it. I am a small business and last year was the toughest year I've had in the 12 years my business has run. And while many months were tight financially last year, I always made sure the premium was paid first, above all other bills. And that premium costs more than all our other bills combined, even our house. In fact, I pay more in insurance premiums a year than I do in state taxes.

Yes, I see the insurance companies as evil. They deal in profit over life.

There are as many children diagnosed with type-1 as there are people who go uninsured every year. And type-1 is only one kind of chronic disease that is very expensive to live with and an insurance company would drop you for almost immediately.

So here is the thing. The key to health care reform is this: cover everybody and make it as affordable as possible.

By all standards, the current HCR bill in the House does this. The one in the Senate does as well, but is not as good. Every analysis of costs, done by independent, not partisan groups, has shown that both HCR bills will make health care more affordable and provide care for more than 30 million more people. Some of these people are healthy people who don't buy insurance because they aren't sick. Some of these people are people with chronic diseases like type-1 who weren't lucky enough to get insurance through a job or who were late with payment or who had their coverage rescinded because their care had simply become too expensive.

With either bill, or the merged bill, the evil practice of denying people coverage will end.

But will we be able to afford it? By all accounts, yes, the rates will go down according to the CBO (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/11/congressional_budget_office_re.html )? Why? Because the influx of healthy people into the market, the competition from the exchange, subsidies for those who need it and the fact that the plans would be regulated by the OBM as they do with the current plans for federal employees, will all work toward lowering costs and providing more benefits to more people.

As someone whose life and and the lives of my children are directly impacted by HCR, I have a direct and vested interest in understanding as much about the legislation as I can. And from my perspective, and from the perspective of many like me, I can tell you directly that as long as the goals are accomplished, I could care less how they are achieved. Would I like to see the insurance companies go away? Yes. Is it necessary to make them go away in order to cover everyone with a chronic illness and make health care more affordable? No. Do the current HCR bills achieve the goals? Yes. Are they perfect? No. I believe more will need to be done to ensure the Insurance companies abide by the law. I believe more regulation will be needed. I believe there will be problems that will have to be worked out.

But doing nothing is not acceptable. It means more people like my children will not be able to afford their medical care. It means many many people who live with chronic disease will have to continue living in fear that they will miss a payment or reach a life-time maximum and have their coverage rescinded. It means many many people like us will have to live with the Republican health care plan: we'll just have to get sick and die.