Health care dominated questioning at the town hall held in Durango on Aug. 4 (Herald, Aug. 5).
Before the Affordable Care Act, more than 41 million people were uninsured. While the ACA has some significant flaws that need to be fixed, the number of uninsured people in this country is now at around 28 million.
Going back to the days where we entrust the markets alone to provide affordable health care insurance should be over. I call on Sen. Cory Gardner and his colleagues to stop pushing the platforms in a wildly unpopular bill known as the “Skinny Repeal,” which was developed in backrooms and thankfully was voted down by the Senate.
While many things need fixed in our health care systems, I hope he will join a bipartisan group of senators and immediately start working to stabilize the private insurance markets. This will help our household and many others in Colorado who fully pay for coverage.
Like thousands of other small business owners, we are not part of an employer group. Our household now pays a $1,300 per-month health insurance premium. I would point out that this is a mortgage payment or roughly five car payments. We can buy this insurance from only one carrier, and sadly, we cannot even use this insurance until we have paid $10,000 out of pocket.
In order to fix the private markets, it will require leadership, Congress being functional, creativity and transparency. It will also require people in America to take more responsibility for becoming healthier, and I think it will require some type of public option and investment.
Health care is simply too important to each of us to continue the partisan bickering and frustrating ideological maneuvering in Washington which both parties have perpetuated.
We elect people to solve problems and solve the big ones, not just the easier ones.
Marsha Porter-Norton
Durango
