
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, August 5, 1994                   TAG: 9408050070
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JOHN WANCHECK
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HEALTH SECURITY EXPRESS

IN LATE July, the Virginia heat seeps up from the pavement like smoke off the grill, and envelops you like that mildewy wool blanket you left too long in the trunk of your Ford. So why, in the midst of the kind of weather that makes ordinary Virginians want to pack it up and head to Alaska - or at least Virginia Beach - did I join a group of Virginians who had volunteered to spend days aboard a crowded bus?

Because this was my last chance to tell Washington that I can no longer afford to play Russian roulette with my health insurance.

On July 30, I climbed aboard the Health Security Express, joining thousands of Americans from across the nation who were also fed up with living with the fear that we're just a pink slip or a new job away from losing our health insurance. In caravans of buses that had traveled from cities like Portland, Ore.; Independence, Mo.; and Dallas, Texas, we were on our way to Washington, D.C., to tell our members of Congress that the time to pass health reform - reform that guarantees health insurance that can never be taken away - is now.

As a community organizer, my jobs are often short-term. Often, my employers don't offer me health insurance at all. When they do, I face new paperwork, restrictions on what doctors I can see, limitations in coverage, and, sometimes, waiting periods before the new insurance company will cover me at all.

When my current job ends in October, I will once again face a terrible choice - pay extraordinarily high premiums for coverage so filled with holes it could pass for Swiss cheese, or drop my insurance altogether until the next job comes along. It's always a gamble.

My story is not unique. Aboard the Health Security Express, I met so many people with stories like mine, or even worse. A woman from Oklahoma lost her insurance when her company relocated - then her husband had a heart attack and they owe the hospital $30,000. A man from Martinsville lost his job - and with it the security of insurance - after he got injured at work. While he was trying to find new insurance, his wife lost her job - and lost health insurance for herself and their daughter. Now his whole family is unprotected, through no fault of their own, and they're scared to death about what will happen the next time illness strikes.

We all put aside our jobs, our lives and our creature comforts, and climbed aboard buses - and we drove together all the way to Washington. When we got to the Capitol, we delivered thousands of handwritten letters that we'd collected along the way. The letters were from people like us to their senators and representatives, asking - demanding - that they pass health reform that will guarantee that you can never lose your health insurance, no matter what.

I hope they listen to us. The insurance companies, drug companies and other lobbyists for the health industry are spending tens of millions of dollars on campaign contributions and slick advertisements to derail health reform. But they don't vote in Virginia. You do. And any senator or representative who has the courage to stand up to the insurance company lobbyists and vote for the president's health reform will get my vote.

Congress ought to give us the same employer-paid benefits that our tax dollars buy for congressmen and their families. They ought to help President Clinton win his struggle to guarantee that nobody who works hard and plays by the rules will ever again lose their health insurance. I just want the same security that members of Congress already voted for themselves.

John Wancheck is Virginia field coordinator for Families USA, a consumer group seeking health-care reform.

by CNB