Recently, my state representative went off the deep end. Addressing the Legislature, Rep. Lance Harvell, R-Farmington, wondered why his 20-year-old son should “have to get a mandate for insurance that would require him to have a pap smear?” Harvell railed against “insurance for autistic children” and suggested that Mainers older than 46 “lack good health.”
He said, “One of the reasons they don’t have health insurance, the youth of this country, is because they’re having to pay for everyone else’s bad health.”
In reality, youths lack health care because jobs nowadays offer no benefits. Even if the young find decent jobs, after student loans, housing and food, nothing is left to fund the uncontrollable insurance industry.
Harvell’s anger is misplaced. He and his political party need to calm down and take a hard look at insurance companies they ardently support.
The Maine Republican Party thinks government intervention and price oversight are unnecessary in a competitive market, and that health insurance premiums are self-regulating.
Recently, Anthem Blue Cross in Maine wanted to increase premium rates by 18.5 percent on their 12,000 individual insurance policies and have been in litigation with the state to get it.
In California, Anthem Blue Cross spent $2 million lobbying their legislature and another $1.6 million on campaign contributions between 2009 and 2010. That’s not competition.
The truth is that Maine’s youth, and even those over age 46, want health insurance, but are priced out of it by an industry more interested in the wellness of shareholders.
Dennis Haszko, Farmington
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