Durbin: Healthcare Reform Needed Now

Press Release

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin held a listening session today at Methodist Medical Center with doctors, patients, small business owners, nurses and hospital administrators to discuss how health insurance reform will help improve the quality of health care. Durbin and others in the U.S. Senate are working to pass health insurance reform because skyrocketing costs and burdensome insurance procedures reduce patients' access to the quality care that every American deserves.

“Reform means that insurance companies will be prohibited from refusing you coverage because you have a preexisting condition,” Durbin said. “It means that key preventive care such as regular checkups and tests that help you prevent illness, such as mammograms or vaccinations will be free. And it means insurance companies will be required to renew any policy as long as the policyholder pays their premium in full. They won't be allowed to refuse renewal just because someone became sick.”

Illinois families have seen their healthcare premiums jump 73% over the last eight years. The average annual premium for family coverage in Illinois climbed more than $5,000 from 2000 to 2008 -- going from an average $7,200 to today's average of $12,500. Today 2.5 million Illinoisans -- more than 1 out of 5 Illinoisans under the age of 65 -- is in a family that must spend more than 10% of its income on health care costs, and another 660,000 spend more than 25% of their income on health care.

“Wrigley Field holds a little more than 41,000 people. You would have to fill the ballpark 16 times just to get the number of Illinois families that face health care costs of more than 25 percent of their income,” Durbin said.

Source