Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 23, 1994 TAG: 9403260015
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Sure, our Northern Virginia cousins have to put up with congestion, high housing costs, the rarefied air one must breathe in a bubbling political cauldron constantly stirred by conflict.
On the other hand, they get to see Louise bite the dust.
If you're thinking that you already saw Louise take that big plunge to the other side with her friend, Thelma, you've got the wrong Louise. That was the Louise of the movies. This is the Louise of Harry and Louise - you know, the fun yuppie couple of the '90s, in the TV ads, who spend their time away from the fast track perusing President Clinton's health-care plan and raising worrisome questions in maddeningly well-modulated tones that convey just the right level of tasteful anxiety.
Apparently they shouldn't have been so calm. Harry lost his job, it seems, and thus his employer-paid insurance. Louise had a life-threatening illness of unspecified description (and she looked so healthy!), and couldn't get coverage because of a pre-existing condition. They had to give up their membership in the club and sell the Beemer (bummer!), but Louise died anyway. Just hadn't sought treatment in time, in hopes of conserving some of their life's savings.
This is hardly the script written by Harry and Louise's legitimate parents, the Health Insurance Association of America. This, rather, is the vision of a group of Hollywood producers that includes Harry Thomason, noted Friend of Bill. The ad aired last week - but only in Washington.
The health-insurance association didn't offer any comment on the retaliatory message, but its members shouldn't be terribly upset. Health insurers are one of the few special-interest groups in health care and related fields that, while rejecting Clinton's plan, believe universal coverage is an essential part of reform. At the same time, they oppose the mandatory health-care alliances that the Clinton plan proposes as a way to buy coverage at large-group rates, spreading the risks and theoretically lowering overall costs.
The insurance industry says it can do a better job by letting free-market competition keep costs down, so long as universal coverage is mandated and insurers can't refuse anyone coverage for a pre-existing condition. That would have provided Louise her much-needed coverage - and left her to worry only about whether the insurance company would allow her doctor to treat her as aggressively as possible while the insurer was trying to hold down costs to stay competitive.
Such fretting might have contributed to her early demise anyway. We think we knew her well enough to say she would have embraced the need for universal coverage - not selfishly, of course, but out of concern for all of those struggling families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not nearly enough to buy their own policies. Or who have members, like her, with dreaded pre-existing conditions.
And she'd be worried about Harry. According to the pro-Clinton-plan commercial, he did get another job. But - you guessed it - his new employer doesn't offer health insurance. Hope he isn't worrying himself sick about it. He can't afford to get ill.
by CNB