Some of you might have heard about the Bruegger’s Bottomless Mug promo. A lot of people are using it as a holiday gift for coffee/bagel addicts. You pay $99 now, and then you get all the coffee you can drink, all year long in 2007. Sounds great. The reason they can pull it off is that coffee really costs next to nothing to produce, especially when you buy one “make” in bulk as Bruegger’s does. So, Bruegger’s could probably give away a few hundred coffees, before they start to lose money. Which is why they do it, they make money and they draw you in for a bagel.
But, I want you to imagine an alternative scenario.
Imagine a world where Bruegger’s coffee actually costs $0.50 per mug to provide. Imagine that you buy THAT mug. You love Bruegger’s coffee, not such a fan of bagels. So, you stop by each morning and have a mug of coffee, while you read your paper, then get another refill before you leave for work. That’s 2 cups per morning, AND, you buy nothing else. Oh, that isn’t good for Bruegger’s. So, on about day 30 the clerk suddenly tells you
“Sorry, sir. We’re not going to refill your mug anymore.”
“But, why? I just saw you refill that woman’s mug?”
“Yes, but she only comes in once or twice a week. AND, she always buys a bagel. We’ll make a decent profit off of her. But, you! You get $1 worth of free coffee every day and never buy anything. At that rate, we’ll start losing money on you in just another 60 days. We can’t have that, so we’re revoking our refill coverage for you.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Sure we can. It’s in the agreement.”
“What agreement?
“The agreement! It’s over there on the wall underneath our ‘Best of the Triangle’ awards.”
Crazy, right? Yet, that is exactly what the health care industry is allowed to do to you. You’re healthy? No problem. We’ll cover you, keep those premiums, copays, deductibles, and coinsurance rolling.
What’s that? You’re ill and are going to require long-term treatment and you don’t belong to a big group insurer like the state? Yeah, buh-bye!!!
So, what do you do when you lose that insurance? You suffer. You suffer and possibly you buy the Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance that covers you at about a gazillion dollars a month with lousy benefits. You go bankrupt, you lose your house, your college savings account for the kids, your retirement, THEN, possibly, you can finally get Medicaid. Think I’m kidding? I know people like this.
But, now things could be different. This is a story from the last session of the legislature, about a bill that COULD see the light of day again this year.
Legislation that would enable thousands of chronically ill, uninsured North Carolinians to buy affordable coverage, which passed the state House by an overwhelming margin last week, appears unlikely to be taken up by the state Senate before lawmakers head home for good….
People buying insurance through the pool would pay no more than 150 percent of what a healthy person would pay for similar coverage. For example, if a healthy person pays $400 a month, then the high-risk person could be charged no more than $600.
Before this, many folks were being asked to pay $3000 a month for health insurance by Blue Cross/Blue Shield. In a previous post I talked about the House Select Committee on Health Care, Subcommittee on Access and their upcoming meeting. Well, it turns out that this bill to create a high-risk pool will be on the table again this year. So, once again I am asking you for action, dammit! The committee is meeting today and this bill will be a major focus.
Contact the House Select Committee members who will be at this meeting and tell them you support the high-risk pool. That’s all you need to tell them. Here is a list of the members of this subcommittee.
- Rep. Bob F. England MD, Co-Chair Bobe@ncleg.net
- Rep. Verla C. Insko , Co-Chair Verlai@ncleg.net
- Rep. Jeffrey L. Barnhart jeffba@ncleg.net
- Rep. Lorene Thomason Coates Lorenec@ncleg.net
- Rep. Susan C. Fisher Susanf@ncleg.net
- Rep. Mary E. McAllister Marymc@ncleg.net
- Rep. Louis M. Pate Jr. Louisp@ncleg.net
- Rep. Mitchell Smith Setzer Mitchells@ncleg.net
- Rep. Ronald Tracy Walker Tracyw@ncleg.net
- Rep. Jennifer Weiss Jenniferw@ncleg.net
- Rep. Arthur J. Williams Arthurw@ncleg.net
- Rep. Larry Wayne Womble Larryw@ncleg.net
Here is the full House member list. Please, email a legislator if you live in North Carolina. Ask them to support the High-Risk Pool and you can throw in supporting all North Carolinians from birth to age 18 while you are at it!
