No, Katharine, There Isn't Universal Health Care
by Matthew T. Everett
Katharine Duckett, a 13-year-old student at Webb School of Knoxville, has already seen her future. Her father, an ad writer for a local advertising firm, suffers from a genetic degenerative joint disease and needs hip replacement surgery, but the company can't afford the premiums to offer health coverage because of his pre-existing condition.
"[A]lthough I am only 13, I already know that my own genetic joint disease will make it impossible to get affordable health insurance," Duckett wrote in January to U.S. Rep. Jimmy Duncan as part of a national letter-writing campaign for middle and high school students called RespecTeen. "My dad and I are not alone. Many families in the United States today are facing this potentially life-threatening predicament."
Duckett says she first became interested in national health care two years ago, prompted by her father's problems. "We realized that he could not get affordable health care, no matter what, because of the high rates," she says. "Now I realize that when I get older I might face the same problem. I'd like a plan to be in place when I'm an adult."
Duckett, who advocates a national system of affordable health care in her letter, was chosen from hundreds of other Tennessee students to meet in Washington, D.C., with Senators Fred Thompson and Bill Frist, as well as Duncan, her Congressional representative. Since all three are Republicans, and since Republicans aren't known for their sympathy toward national health care initiatives, the cold responses she received from Thompson and Frist probably were expected. But Duckett, who made the trip to Washington earlier this month, says Duncan was cordial and respectful in their hour-long meeting, even though he tried to persuade her of the error of her ways.
"It went well," Duckett says. "He was far more receptive to my ideas than the senators were, even though he didn't totally agree. I told him why I thought it would work and he told me why he thought it wouldn't. It helped me to see things from a different point of view."
Duncan was unavailable for comment on the meeting or Duckett's letter, but his office in Washington did provide a copy of a reply letter dated March 14. In the letter, Duncan commended Duckett's interest in health care but insisted that "there is literally nothing in our national experience that suggests that giving the federal government complete control over our health care system will make it cheaper or more efficient." Duncan also gave Duckett information about TennCare, which provides coverage for those who aren't offered it by their employers.
As an alternative to a national plan, Duncan proposed medical savings accounts, which would allow buyers to purchase low-premium, high-deductible health insurance while establishing a tax-free account for out-of-pocket expenses. The program, Duncan argues, would encourage competition to keep costs down and provide patients with the ability to choose their own physicians.
But Duckett, while she appreciates the congressman's efforts, isn't swayed. She says her family already has a medical savings account and still can't afford major surgeries, leaving her father with limited options for his needed hip replacement. And she's confident that a national plan to provide annual checkups, vaccinations, prenatal care, and emergency treatment is within the government's power.
"I realize that any national health care plan will require monumental change in the way Americans pay for and perceive medical care, but huge challenges have never stopped this nation before," she wrote to Duncan. "All U.S. citizens deserve and need basic health care coverage. Americans who cannot pay the high cost of health care pay with their lives."
Duckett says her experience with Duncan has been a valuable introduction to national political issues. "RespecTeen is quite worthwhile," she says. "It gives young people an understanding of how government works."
Bill requiring chip mills to fund impact studies gets struck down
by Joe Tarr
A bill requiring chip mills seeking state aid to do a forest impact study died in a budget committee last week after heavy lobbying from industry and the Tennessee Farm Bureau.
Easily passing the senate last year with only three dissenting votes, the bill would apply only to chip or pulp mills seeking to expand or open in Tennessee using grants from the Department of Economic and Community Development. The study would look at the impact of increased logging for the mills, and how it might affect other forest industries such as furniture makers and saw mills.
Industries such as these are typically awarded grants—through a local municipality—of around $700,000 to $900,000, says Doug Murray, of the Dogwood Alliance and Tennessee Forest Watch.
The senate's version of the bill had the state picking up the cost of the studies, estimated at about $16,000. However, the house amended the legislation to have the chip mill picking up the tab.
But the legislation never made it out of the House budget committee—known by some as the "black hole" for its tendency to quash bills or leave them in limbo.
"The bill died for lack of a motion. The Farm Bureau rounded up enough votes [against it] that it never had a chance of passing," says Brian Paddock, chair of Save Our Cumberland Mountains' forestry committee. "It really shows the power of what we're up against."
Murray was upset and baffled by the bill's defeat.
"Even though it had a zero price tag on it—and that's what the budget committee is supposed to consider, the price, not the content—it was killed in that committee. I think that's absolutely deplorable," Murray says.
Most confusing was why the Tennessee Farm Bureau—an insurance and lobbyist group representing agricultural interests—actively campaigned against the bill.
"In the last days of lobbying, we kept hearing over and over that if the Farm Bureau would sign on, we'd have no problem with this," Murray says.
Rhedona Rose, chief lobbyist for the Farm Bureau, says that the bureau primarily opposed the bill because it singled out the forest products industry. She says that it didn't apply only to chip mills, but to all forest products, including furniture and hardwood industries. (However, this is untrue. To clear up any confusion, an amendment clearly defines those affected as "any entity or organization that uses wood chip materials for purposes of processing and producing fiber-based products instead of any entity or organization engaged in the commercial harvesting or use of timber for the purpose of producing a wood or wood fiber-based product.")
Rose added that an increasing number of forestry bills had been considered by the Legislature of late—all of which were defeated—and this worried the bureau. "The concern is the overriding direction of where we're heading here," she says.
Paddock had a different take: "The industry people, they just didn't want anything that looked at the consequences of the chip mills."
Murray says they'll try to pass the bill again next year, when it won't have to go through the budget committee because it no longer costs the state anything.
April 20, 2000 * Vol. 10, No. 16
© 2000 Metro Pulse
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