JournalInquirer.com

Health insurance and reform: a marriage made in heaven?
CT@Work
By Leo Canty
Published: Thursday, September 24, 2009 12:08 PM EDT

I do.

You can count on hearing couples at wedding ceremonies say those two simple words.

Those same couples are less likely to repeat those words when asked if they have a health plan that takes care of them when they’re sick — or if they even have a health plan at all.

A relatively nondescript census report released last week described the status of health-care coverage for America’s families. The number of people without health insurance grew to 46.3 million in 2008, up a mere 600,000 from the year before. Here in Connecticut 17,000 newly uninsured were added to the rolls, bringing us to a total of 343,000 — 44,000 of whom are children.

Census data also shows a scary trend of fewer people getting health insurance from private coverage or employer-based coverage, as the number of people covered by private health insurance decreased by a million in 2008.

As those numbers keep ticking up it won’t be long before it’s your turn to sacrifice your health or life savings at the altar of the health-insurance gods. And all the fighting, political posturing, and delay geared to protect the wealth of big pharmaceutical and health company CEOs and investors is producing more polarization than solutions.

We really need a plan fast before it’s too late. So, who has one?

I do.

I’m a justice of the peace and I asked a few of my peers if they have run across couples who have become more motivated to get married for a health plan. While no one performed a ceremony for couples who exercised their “I do’s” solely for coverage, there are instances when people changed their life plans and marriage timing because a future spouse became uncovered through job loss, a canceled plan, or unaffordable premiums. Some found out they were suddenly on the parent track before the wedding track and the quickest path to coverage was down the aisle.

Younger workers statistically have less health care and are waiting longer to marry. Well, skip the government option and get on with the nuptials. We have 46 million uninsured and a couple hundred million with health plans — should be a bunch of matches made in health-care heaven.

Need an insurance plan? Marry your old college roommate or high school flame. Think of the economic boost with startups for health plan dating services — healthbeau.com or matecoverage.biz. Don’t do it for love. Do it for a plan.

More covered lives. More happy parents (and JPs). And it will boost the economy. It’s all there.

Well, maybe not.

There just might be a few too many bad moral and ethical consequences. But so is hanging those 46 million uninsured Americans — along with the 14,000 who join them every day — out to dry while we fight over who should win or lose in the big money health game.

Of course, it’s not a good plan, but right up there with co-ops, starting over, or deregulating the health care free market.

What’s left? Right now we live in a system that is owned and operated by an insurance monopoly that labels costs for your care as “medical losses.” Death panels and rationed care — courtesy of the insurance cartel that raises prices at will, or reduces, denies, or cancels coverage — are part of the bad system we need to toss.

It’s a sad day in America when options to protect health, family, and life run out, as is the case for increasing numbers of health-care victims. If we can agree that marriage without commitment is doomed to failure, both practically and morally, then we also should agree that spending our families into bankruptcy for insurance coverage that fails us is equally doomed to moral and practical failure.

Who wants couples to get married for the right reasons and live happily ever after? Who wants to see them protected by an economical health-care system that saves lives, is affordable with good options and choices, embraces prevention, covers medical care when needed, and doesn’t bankrupt wedded bliss or future families (Obama’s plan)?

When you think about it, you probably do.

I do.

Leo Canty is a labor and political activist. He lives in Windsor