Residents learn about health care options
Madison forum discusses alternatives to for-profit system
By Katelyn Farago
Daily Record
March 22, 2009
MADISON — Borough residents Geoff and Laurie Thomas are currently facing a reality many unemployed and self-employed Americans share. They are paying for their own health insurance.
For the Thomases, who are insured under Cobra, the cost is $900 per month.
Unsatisfied with the accessibility and affordability of health care in the current for-profit system, the couple decided to organize a health care forum at the Madison Public Library Saturday and showed the PBS Frontline documentary “Sick Around The World.” The documentary examines the health care systems of five capitalist democracies in order to determine what the United States might be able to learn from them.
“This gives us a view of what’s possible,” Laurie Thomas said.
The couple also organized a forum at the library last year.
A believer in the principles of a participatory democracy, she said she thinks citizens have the responsibility to educate themselves on important issues such as health care.
She said she would personally prefer to have a national health care system in the United States, and supports the new congressional bill, House Resolution 676, which would ensure that every American is provided with comprehensive health insurance coverage by essentially expanding and improving Medicare.
After the documentary, the Thomases held an informal discussion. One resident spoke up to say that he has Parkinson’s disease, and has not been able to get health coverage. He asked the room what he could do.
Another resident described the American resistance to socialized medicine as a “joke,” explaining that the United States has other socialized institutions, namely education and law enforcement.
And yet another resident asked what could be done, and how citizens could help get HR 676 passed.
“It’s going to take a movement of activists,” Laurie Thomas said, and her husband, Geoff, emphasized education. Both are members of Healthcare-now! and Physicians for a National Health Care Program — organizations in favor of a single-payer health care system.
Madison resident Sarah Mercuri, who works as a human relations consultant, has been paying for her own health care for seven years. But after being laid off, she said she doesn’t think she can afford to pay for it any longer.
“Health care in this country just isn’t affordable,” she said. “If you lose your job, you basically lose your health coverage.”
Mercuri said she was motivated to attend the forum because she wanted to show her support for HR 676.
Dr. Carol Dimond, M.D., also a supporter of the bill, said she thinks it’s important to spread the word about the legislation.
“There are too many people suffering unnecessarily,” she said. “I feel there is a need for single-payer (health care),” Dimond said.