Letter from one caught in the middle

More and more people are caught in the ever growing middle between having good insurance and being on welfare. This is an actual letter and a great message:
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"Self-Employed and Farmers Need Health Care Too

My husband and I are hard working self employed farmers and have a home woodworking business which keeps us fully employed. We do not have an outside job that provides medical insurance.



Given the recent rate increases in our medical insurance premiums, paying for our own insurance is no longer an option we can afford. Here is the letter we had to send to Blue Cross Blue Shield of MN.

Customer service department,

Due to economic circumstances in our household and your two most recent rate increases we can no longer afford to or justify holding medical insurance with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota.

From our perspective the rate increase is unfounded and further depletes our monthly budget to the extent that a visit to the doctor is nearly impossible.

I am not comfortable with being under insured and still paying $539.00 per month for that privilege. Our current policy looks like a very big waste of money, of which we have so little.

I am hoping these explanations help your company to find a better way, and not just a better marketing strategy.

Please cancel my insurance policy numbered XXXX effective April 1, 2010.

Respectfully,

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx



I have heard in the media that the insurance rates are going up so much because of all the lay offs and employers dropping coverage. So, we have to pay more because more and more people don't have coverage. All I know for sure is that the rates on our insurance policy have increased every year in the time we have had it, both in good times and bad.



We need a different way to do this. A way so hard working people don't get left out.



We applaud the effort to extend health care to low income people, but self employed farmers, and others who are self employed and small businesses need affordable health care coverage also. We have always considered the United States to be a great country to live and work in, but now many of who fall in the middle are being forced to take the gamble that we won't get drastically sick and save the dollars that were spending on medical insurance to use to actually go see a doctor if we need to. The policy we were in had a deductible so high that a visit to the doctor’s office would result us making monthly payments to the provider on top of the premiums to the insurance company, what is also known as being "underinsured".

America’s current health care system means people pay more and get less – until they can’t even afford it any more. That weakens our economy, undermines families, concentrates wealth in fewer and fewer hands, and puts people’s long-term health at risk. It’s clear to me that America would be stronger with a decent health care system.

In my mind, we in our state of Minnesota can and should do much better on health care, and can help lead the nation on real reform that works and fits average people's budgets. We can’t afford to keep letting this slide."