To: The Dallas Morning News
Date:  June 30, 2004
Subject: Health insurance 
Result: not printed

Dear Editor,

I would like to offer some consolation to Julie Higby, who wrote recently to express her concern that the premiums on her family's health insurance policy, provided by the City of Dallas through her husband's job as a police officer, will increase from $258 to $453 a month. I've heard similar complaints from teachers and others about their group insurance policies.

I myself am a single, 52-year-old man who has had no serious health problems to date, and am "self-employed" (still in the pre-income stage). My insurance policy is through the National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE), which is a group that has hundreds of thousands of members, I believe. You would think that would give them some pretty good bargaining power with their insurance provider. I've also heard NASE radio commercials that state, "Call us for affordable health insurance."

I began with this policy in 1997, and my premiums at that time were $250 a month. Since then there has been a significant increase every 6 months. I moved to Ohio for a year and a half, and while there my policy went from $800 to $996 to $1200 right before I moved back to Dallas in April.

Sound pretty outrageous? Well, when I got back to Dallas, I learned that medical care is more expensive in Dallas than in Cleveland - due to more fat people, I heard - so there you go, another $270. So that's $1470 a month, until October when I predict $1650.

But then, with all that money, I must have great benefits. Right? In addition to the $1470, I also pay about 75% of my prescription costs, so my share for the Nexium and Lipitor I take comes to about $133 a month. If you're trying to avoid back and/or hip surgery like me, you might want to confer with a physical therapist to get some good exercises to try to manage those problems. No can do. The policy pays for therapy only after you have surgery.

Lesson number one: Don't call NASE if you want affordable health insurance. Lesson number two: Even though what I am paying may be far beyond what is reasonable, the fact remains that medical costs are going up, and it is not reasonable to expect that it's not going to come out of your pocket.


Thank you, John Vehon