1:21 PM Wed, Nov 14, 2007 | Permalink
By Mike McKinney  Email this author | Email this entry |
PROVIDENCE -- Ahead of her plans to push a package of health-care bills in the upcoming legislative session, Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts said a new health-care advisory group will meet Friday.
Roberts calls it Mission: Healthy RI and it will draw from the medical community, the insurance industry, hospitals, business owners, labor leaders, consumers, and others, a news release said today.
The group's first meeting is Friday from 7:30 to 9 a.m. at the Business Innovation Factory at the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation's Valley Street offices.
"Inaction is not an option for the future of health care in Rhode Island," Roberts wrote in a letter to invitees. "The single theme I hear most often when listening to Rhode Islanders is that the stakes are too high to sit by and watch. We cannot stand by passively as more small business owners see their premiums rise at unsustainable rates and more Rhode Island families find themselves uninsured."
Invitations were sent out to "key stakeholders" but members of the public are encouraged to attend and participate. All sessions will be Friday mornings from 7:30 to 9. Sessions are scheduled for Nov. 16 and 30, Dec. 7, 14 and 21, and Jan. 4, 11 and 18.
-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney
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I don't think it's fair for workers to be paying through the nose for health care, especially when so many people on welfare and/or social security are basically getting free medical care. This is fact. Hospitals can't turn people away because they're not insured, and the uninsured will run to ER's for everything from colds to gun shot wounds. People are dying on gurneys in hallways because the ER's are being overrun by the uninsured. That's why medical costs are so high and it's the working person who's getting hit with exorbitant rates! I hope this Committee and Lt. Gov. Roberts will recognize that in order to bring health care costs down and make insurance affordable, health care can't be given away free to those who aren't responsible enough to get their own coverage. These are people who can't be bothered with working or work at menial, minimum paying jobs that don't include insurance. If they were more responsible in getting themselves educated and skilled so they could join the workforce and be accountable for themselves rather than relying on the government, health care wouldn't be in the mess it is. As it is, I not only carry (pay for) full medical coverage, but I also pay for supplemental policies for extra coverage. Now my employer is telling us we have to go with the health savings plan which means instead of putting a little money away each week, I have to come up with a couple of thousand dollars up front, and then pay full price for my prescriptions/medical visits until I meet a $2,000 deductible. This isn't fair and I'm quite sure that if EVERYONE paid for their own coverage (no freebies), then the insurance rates wouldn't be so high.
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We cannot afford healthcare so long as union labor dominates. Look what union labor did to the automobile industry in our country. Only difference- we can't import high quality, low cost health care, the way we do cars.
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