Health Reform Rewrite Attacks Older Workers

The dismantling of Washington’s landmark health care reform act by Republicans puts number crunchers for insurance companies back in charge of life and death decisions again.

The reform act of 1993 treated everyone alike, and the goal was coverage for all.

But the new law says insurance companies can discriminate against people in terms of where they live, their family size, their wellness activities and their age.

As a result, hundreds of thousands of citizens will continue to go without coverage as insurers play policyholders off against each other to maximize company profits. And instead of fostering universal coverage, the new law gives insurance companies virtually carte blanche to single out the most vulnerable segment of the work force, older workers, for the cruelest hit.

The old act required the pooling of health risks in a given population so insurers couldn’t charge some consumers prohibitively high rates. This system of socalled “community-rating” of premiums produced one price for all.

But under the GOP rewrite, “age banding” allows insurers to hike premiums for older workers so high that many may be priced out of the market. Not just the insurance market - but the work market as well.

The new law creates several age bands. The youngest and least expensive is below 20, and the oldest and most expensive is 60 to 65. Above, there’s Medicare.

Before reform, older workers paid half a dozen times as much for insurance as young people. As stated above, reform would have eliminated rate gyrations. But reform was anathema to insurance companies, which exist to juggle statistics and whipsaw ratepayers.

So, under the GOP rewrite, rates for older persons will be allowed to spike up again. Then gradually over the balance of the century, the top rate that insurance companies can charge older workers will be reduced to 375 percent - or three and three-fourths times - the rate charged the youngest age group.

The theory is that age-banding doesn’t penalize the individual within a given age band. And if young people get insurance for less, more will buy it.

But the fact is, this is age discrimination pure and simple. It advances the profitmaking agendas of insurance big shots out to pad their own multimillion-dollar salaries and bonuses at the expense of older workers.

Discrimination based on any factor beyond a person’s or a group’s control is repugnant. Period.

Adding insult to injury, insurance lobbyists and right-wing opportunists cloaked their attack on older workers in the mantel of free enterprise. Outrageous.

The health reform saboteurs didn’t dare penalize gays for sexual preference that subjects them to high risks of AIDs, most prevalent among younger ages and many times more expensive than heart surgery.

Nor were they brave enough to pick on African-Americans for a high incidence of coronary disease and diabetes.

But the enemies of health reform felt safe and politically correct in pounding older workers.

There ought to be a law against it. In fact, there is.

The GOP reform rewrite is unconstitutional.

If Spokane activist attorney Steve Eugster wants a truly humanitarian legal cause to pursue, this is a dandy.

As to other rating factors under the new law, people can affect family size, stop smoking, start exercising, even pick where they live, but nobody can stop time.

The new law strikes directly at older persons in the workplace, where seniors already bear the brunt of corporate costcutting and downsizing and restructuring.

Higher insurance costs will make it virtually impossible for older workers who lose their jobs to secure new employment with health benefits. And their own private individual rates will multiply.

People over 65 get Medicare. People on welfare get Medicaid. Public employees, teachers included, are secure in their benefits and employment. No sweat.

It is older workers in the private sector who alone will pay the price. And the insurance vultures are waiting to pick their bones clean.

The guarantee of equal rights demands repeal of the GOP’s unconstitutional attack on older workers.

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