What the candidates say about health care coverage

Sandy Bressner – sbressner@nwherald.com Kathleen Wunderlich of Harvard plays with her nephew. Wunderlich was diagnosed with cervical cancer in April 2008 and is uninsured. She now owes more than $200,000 in medical bills and is waiting to be approved for Medicaid.

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WOODSTOCK – Christine Contreras works daily with patients who do not have health insurance. As a phlebotomist at a McHenry County medical office, she often encounters patients who change their mind about having recommended blood tests when they learn how much they will cost.

Contreras knows how they feel. Although she works in the medical field, she has been without health insurance for five years.

She and her husband both work, but neither of their employers offers a health insurance plan. Contreras spends her entire paycheck on food, rent, gas, student loan payments, and other essentials for her family of five. As much as she would like to have health insurance, she cannot afford it. It would take up her entire paycheck, she said.

“I want health insurance, and I need it, but I have to feed my kids,” she said.

Contreras is not alone. More than 40,000 McHenry County residents – 14.2 percent – are uninsured, according to county-by-county estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau in October. That’s lower than the state average of 15.4 percent uninsured and lower than the uninsured rates in Kane, Lake, Boone, DeKalb, and Cook counties. But it could decrease even more if either of the candidates for president implements his health care plan.

McHenry County’s uninsured tend to have jobs and relatively low incomes, but not low enough to qualify for Medicaid, said Suzanne Hoban, executive director of the Family Health Partnership Clinic in Woodstock. The clinic provides a range of health services to McHenry County residents, regardless of their ability to pay.

Both Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama have laid out health care plans that they say would shrink the number of uninsured. According to McCain’s campaign Web site, his health care plan would provide individuals with a $2,500 tax credit and families with a $5,000 tax credit to help offset the cost of health insurance.

McCain also would make health insurance plans portable so that changing jobs would not mean losing health insurance.

Obama’s plan would create a new government-run health insurance program. He would require all employers, except small businesses, to provide good health care coverage for their employees or contribute to the public plan.

Kathleen Wunderlich of Harvard said she was planning to vote for Obama.

“I would go for him because he knows what it’s like for a family to go through [having cancer], having bills, and being worried about how you’re going to pay them,” she said. “That was my biggest worry. I can’t work. What am I going to do?”

Wunderlich has been without health insurance since 2002. She’s 30 and was diagnosed with cervical cancer in April. She worked as a hairstylist before she got sick but chose to pay for her immediate needs, such as food, rather than investing in health insurance.

Now, she owes more than $200,000 in medical bills and still needs treatment. She has applied for Medicaid, but it could take as long as six months to be approved. In the meantime, her doctors at Centegra Hospital – McHenry have continued to provide her with the services she needs, she said. 

Both candidates’ plans would benefit individuals with pre-existing medical conditions, typically a costly group to insure. Obama would prohibit private insurers from denying insurance coverage or charging higher premiums to individuals with pre-existing health conditions. McCain would create a Guaranteed Access Plan for people who are typically denied insurance coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

Contreras said she had not paid much attention to the election, but she hoped that whomever won would make health insurance more affordable.

“I ended up going into debt because I … got severely sick and needed to go to the doctor no matter what. I went to a clinic, and there went my rent money,” she said.

“You shouldn’t have to think about it.”