The Homer Tribune :: Homer, Alaska

The Weekender: What's Happening This Weekend in Homer?

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

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OPINION

• Editorial

• Letters to the Editor

Is this the summer for health reform?

While not as vehemently volatile an issue as gay marriage or abortion, America’s healthcare system undoubtedly suffers from some serious shortfalls.
And all indications are that the healthcare battle has just begun.
While U.S. President Barack Obama continues to struggle with the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, two wars and a number of foreign policy challenges from Iran to North Korea, he took time last week to address the troublesome issue of healthcare reform.
The healthcare system has been problem for quite a while, and continues to be a major issue. Skyrocketing healthcare costs are hurting families, forcing businesses to cut or drop health benefits and straining state budgets. Currently, it is estimated that some 47 million Americans do not have health insurance, and some 18,000 people die every year as a direct result.
How many more Americans will have to die before we are able to procure an efficient, effective and relatively non-threatening healthcare system?
In a perfect world, we wouldn’t have to worry about offending anyone with a healthcare program. But this is America, and any time you talk about “fixing” our healthcare system, you find those who are opposed to any kind of change.
And while some of the proposals being pushed by the president – such as an increased emphasis on preventative care and a greater use of technology to reduce administrative costs - are non-controversial, the same cannot be said for one of his central ideas: creating a government-backed health insurance scheme that would compete with the private insurance companies. After all, Americans are already wary with a long-standing suspicion of “big government.”
Attempts to establish a system that provides for everyone is quickly labeled “socialized medicine,” and words like socialism and communism are flung carelessly around at anyone who thinks differently.
More than likely, however, anyone faced with a serious illness and less-than-adequate insurance isn’t really going to care how you label a healthcare system – they just need the coverage.
And – despite our ongoing attempts to distance ourselves from the rest of the U.S. – Alaskans face plenty of problems with healthcare services all our own.
According to the president’s Web site on healthcare reform:
• Roughly 400,000 people in Alaska get health insurance on the job, where family premiums average $14,113, about the annual earnings of a full-time minimum wage job.
• Since 2000 alone, average family premiums have increased by 102 percent in Alaska.
• 19 percent of middle-income Alaska families spend more than 10 percent of their income on healthcare.
• 14 percent of people in Alaska report not visiting a doctor due to high costs.
• 18 percent of people in Alaska are uninsured, and 72 percent of them are in families with at least one full-time worker.
• The percent of Alaskans with employer coverage is declining: 58 percent were covered in 2007.
• While small businesses make up 78 percent of Alaska businesses, only 25 percent of them offered health coverage benefits in 2006.
The need for healthcare reform in Alaska – as well as across the country – is very clear. Alaska families simply can’t afford the status quo and continually paying more for less service. The Obama Administration says it is committed to working with Congress to pass health reform this year that reduces costs for families, businesses and government; protects people’s choice of doctors, hospitals and health plans; and assures affordable, quality healthcare for all Americans.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to late for too many more Americans.

Exxon pays up

Last week, a Homer Tribune survey asked readers if they predicted Exxon would pay the interest fees on its 20-year foot-dragging lawsuit related to 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil spill, or if the company would find another side-step with the appeals process. Only eight out of 126 thought optimistically that the company would pay up. Another 11 of the 126 thought maybe now that Exxon is courting a business venture with Alaska’s gasline, the company might pay the more than $500 million in interest. They would do this as a public relations ploy, at the very least, or as Homer resident Frank Mullen put it, now that “Alaska wants to take Exxon to the prom.”
Well, Exxon decided to not fight it. In Alaska, this is as good as it gets, given the dismal record of one the world’s most profitable oil companies. Learn and live on, folks. Live and learn.

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