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The other health care proposal

Do it. Do it right. Do it right now!

With so many stories, it was almost impossible to select a topic for this week's commentary. Vice President Cheney's 2002 proposed military action in Lackawanna, New York. Police profiling that found its way to a president press conference. Or, receiving a ticket for using an otherwise legitimate alternative transportation, roller-skating, in downtown Columbia Missouri. These and others are important, but none as important to Americans as the two proposed health care reform plans.

Two? Ah, yes. With great zeal, the president and media portrayed the America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 as our only choice. The second, introduced by Representative John Conyers (D-MI), the United States National Health Care Act,meets the original premise put forth by candidate Obama of having a single payer health-care system.

With over 20-years of experience in the insurance industry as a state regulator, a consultant and agency manager, and having written five health insurance professional development textbooks, I know the health insurance industry. I am not an expert, but I do know a whole lot. To say the current system is broken is an understatement.

With the introduction of the Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) in 1973, I was hopeful that health care would become proactive, that heath care would be become a priority and, most importantly, would become affordable. Then the Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) and the Point of Service plans (POS). All with great promises. All failed.

35 years after the HMO Act, the increased cost of health insurance has continuously outpaced inflation. We have little to say about our medical or pharmaceutical treatments, which doctor we can see or which hospital we wish to use. Healthcare is still financially out of reach for the most individuals, and small to medium size businesses.

For example, in 2008, Missouri insurance premiums average(d) $12,925, about the annual earning of a full-time minimum wage job. Premium shave increased 92 percent in the last nine years. Missouri's employers do not insure nearly one-third of our citizens. More than 750,000 are uninsured. Dismal numbers to say the best.

The president's plan may insure 97 percent of Americans. All must purchase an insurance policy, private or government, with no real guaranty of affordability. That still leaves 3 percent of the population uninsured. If that plan was based solely on Missouri's

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