I'm going to talk about health care.
I'd appreciate it if you would focus strictly on yourself. Don't think about what any member of Congress, the president or any advertisement have said on television, radio or the Internet. And, for Pete's sake, don't think about what any talking head, left, right or middle, has said about it.
This really is all about you.
If you're a working person and have insurance, how much have your premiums and co-pays gone up in the past 10 years in relation to your salary? How long can you afford to keep your insurance if that continues?
If you've used your insurance, have you found parts of your claim denied? Have you been surprised when procedures or tests the insurance company doesn't cover did not count toward your deductible or out-of -pocket expenses? Have you or your medical providers had to file claims over and over again to try to get them paid?
Have you put off going to the doctor, having a recommended test or procedure because of the cost, even with your insurance? Have your prescription co-pays climbed to the point that you don't get them refilled as often as you should or you take less than the recommended dosage? How close are you to your annual or lifetime maximum?
Have you been forced to decide between paying your mortgage, rent or utilities in order to pay medical bills or insurance premiums? Are medical and medical insurance costs endangering your ability to meet bills to the point you are considering bankruptcy?
Have you or a member of your family been denied insurance coverage because of past illnesses or conditions? Have you based a critical decision like whether to change jobs or follow your spouse or children to another place on the fear of losing your health insurance? Does your Preferred Provider Organization or Health Maintenance Organization dictate which doctors you may use and which you may not?
Have you watched as your children lost their insurance because they graduated from college or are three years out of high school and can't find jobs that pay enough to afford to buy insurance?
Have you, your parents or adult children lost jobs to the recession and find insurance premiums impossible to afford? Have you lost your health care insurance and can't afford to buy it? Do you have pre-existing conditions that keep you from qualifying for health care coverage?
Have you gone to the emergency room lately? Did there appear to be lots of people seeking help whose illness might have started during regular doctors' office hours? Do you know that the most expensive place -- both in terms of human suffering and cost to all the rest of us -- is in an emergency room?
Do you know that doctors and other medical service providers suffer staggering amounts of uncompensated care costs for treating people who have no or inadequate insurance? Do you know that much of that cost is passed on to you, about $1,000 a year in extra premium charges on your insurance. Can you even guess how much extra you pay in city, school, county, state, federal and other public entity taxes to cover those extra costs in insurance for public servants?
If the answers you gave to yourself about these questions bring up disturbing realities in your life, do you think you will be less disturbed next year and the next and the next?
Today, there are 47 million Americans without health care insurance.
How far are you from joining their ranks? Estimates are that premium costs are rising three times faster than pay raises or inflation. Your premiums are expected to double by 2016 unless we do something now. And that something must cover as many of those 47 million uninsured as possible. Otherwise, we're still paying for their care and in the most expensive way imaginable.
Adjusted records show that one in 10 Texans in the last quarter of 2009 were either unemployed, took a part time job and gave up unemployment benefits or work at marginal jobs without benefits because they lost their jobs. All of these people either just lost their health insurance or are living on borrowed time.
So, here's the part where I'm asking you to look down the road of your future and see how it lines up with what is happening to other people. An estimated 45,000 Americans die each year because they have no health insurance. But I've never known an American whose heart is so hard he or she would point to another human being and say: She's poor, let her die.
As chronic joblessness grows, something only the eldest of us has witnessed, more and more people will face the fate of not having insurance. Every one of us will either be in that position or footing the bill. The only question is, what is the best way in human and financial terms to do that.
If you think the answer is to free up the insurance industry market and let consumers choose among more, unregulated options, I ask how that has worked for you in the deregulated electricity market, or with cell phones or long distance providers? Do you feel confident as a consumer with those choices? Has your electricity bill gone down?
And if you think the answer is tort reform, did your medical costs go down when Texas did that more than five years ago?
The health care debate is about you and your family's future. Is doing nothing an option you can live with?
KATHY WILLIAMS is co-city editor of the Herald Democrat. E-mail her at kwilliams@heralddemocrat.com