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Miami prof: Health care bill a  work in progress

Legislation will  evolve over time,  Miami prof says. 

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By Denise Wilson, Staff Writer Updated 8:14 AM Monday, March 22, 2010

MIDDLETOWN — The passage of the landmark health care bill Sunday night, March 21, is one that will go down in history.

Miami University professors Sherrill Sellers and Melissa Thomasson commented on its merits.

Sellers, an associate professor in Family Studies and Social Work at Miami University in Oxford, said 47 million people in the United States don’t have health care today.

The bill’s passage will now provide coverage for 32 million people, leaving 15 million without health insurance, she said.

“It’s a big step in the right direction,” she said.

The bill also will change the way we deliver health care in the U.S. by preventing insurance companies from denying people with pre-existing conditions — like cancer — health insurance.

“That in itself is monumental,” said Sellers, adding that the cost of health care can bankrupt a family.

Sellers compared the health care bill’s passage to the social security bill, which was initially signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935 to provide retirement, disability, survivorship and death benefits to Americans.

“It wasn’t a perfect bill — it had problems too,” she said.

However, she said like the social security bill, the health care bill will probably undergo many changes before all is said and done.

In the meantime, Sellers said the bill’s passage will improve the country’s overall health.

“That’s what makes it historic,” she said.

Thomasson, an associate professor of economics in the Department of Economics in the Farmer School of Business at Miami University in Oxford, said the bill’s passage will ensure individuals have a much easier time buying insurance in the short run.

“For example, for me, for someone with employment-based coverage, it’s not really going to change how I get insurance for the time being, but for my neighbors down the street who just retired that are too young to qualify for Medicare, who face premiums that are upwards of a $1,000 a month in individual markets, they will be able to buy affordable health care, ” Thomasson said.

However, she said the bill does not address rising health care costs, which leaves room for future attempts to do so.

“This is not sweeping health care (reform),” Thomasson said.

Contact this reporter at (513) 483-5219 or dewilson@coxohio.com.

»Get more news on the health care bill online Journal-News.com

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