Issue date: 11/11/09 Section: News

As the health insurance reform bill moves to the Senate, the St. John's community weighs in on the national debate.

The proposal, Affordable Health Care for America, which made it's way through the House by a vote of 220-215, aims to build on "what works in today's health care system, while repairing the aspects
that are broken."

If passed, as adopted by the House, the bill would not allow insurance companies to deny coverage for pre-existing medical conditions, and also force many employers to provide workers with some form of medical insurance.

The bill requires Senate approval before President Obama can sign it into law.

About 47 million Americans are uninsured and nearly 1.1 million part-time workers lost their health insurance last year, reports The National Coalition on Health Care. Nearly seven million Americans will lose health coverage by 2010 if efforts are not made to reform health care.

The National Coalition on Health Care is the nation's largest representative alliance working to reform America's health care. The Coalition brings together large and small businesses, the nation's largest labor, consumer, religious and primary care provider groups, and the largest health and pension funds.

"As a great nation, we should provide health care access to those who are uninsured, even illegal immigrants," said Franklin Camerano, associate professor of Social Sciences. "I think we should have one health system provided by the government, even if it takes 20 or 30 years to establish, that makes coverage access available to anyone, regardless of political status."

Camerano, former St. John's director of Health Administrations, also said that by providing more Americans with health care, medical conditions can be identified.
"With health care access, people can detect stages of diseases earlier so that their disease won't reach critical proportions," he said.

Freshman Jonathan Stuart felt similarly.
"If the bill is passed, [people] who have stage one cancer, won't wait until [end] stage to get checked and it will be a good thing for people all around the country," he said.

Thomas Olik, president of College Democrats, called the current health care system "broken" and said he felt that insurance companies have profited tremendously at the cost of average, working-class Americans.

"College students, and people in general, have so much to worry about, like ending up bankrupt due to a health emergency," he said.

Continued...

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