Whitehouse hears from consumers on costs

As the debate over health care reform heats up in Washington, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., is continuing to gather input from the public on several fronts, including local forums and hearings on Capitol Hill.
The latest event, on Oct. 20, brought Kerry Burns, of Coventry, before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts, which Whitehouse chairs, to talk about the devastating impact of medical debt.
Burns lost her home and filed for bankruptcy after her 4-year old son endured lengthy hospital stays and eventually died of complications from cystic fibrosis.
“The emotional hardship my husband and I endured over the course of our son’s hospitalization pales in comparison to what we have felt since his loss,” she said. “Losing a child is the greatest injury for a parent and something we would not wish on anyone. As if this loss were not enough to handle, and rebuilding our lives without our son was not hard enough, we have been faced with financial ruin.”
Burns was one of several people who testified at the hearing, including other victims of medical debt, as well as experts such as Elizabeth Edwards, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and wife of former U.S. Sen. John Edwards.
Whitehouse has introduced a bill, the Medical Bankruptcy Fairness Act of 2009 (S. 1624), that would make the bankruptcy process quicker and less expensive for filers with high medical debts and increase their chances of retaining their homes by protecting at least $250,000 of home value. It would also remove credit counseling requirements when the cause of bankruptcy is a medical crisis, and waive the so-called “means test,” making the filing process quicker and less costly. That would also allow more people to have their debts discharged in Chapter 7, the most efficient and simplest bankruptcy process available.
Separately, on Oct. 16, Whitehouse held a roundtable discussion with local business owners at Donna’s Grill on the Hill in Providence. Among the attendees was Rob Cagnetta, of Heritage Restoration in Providence, who provides insurance for his eight employees but has seen premiums triple in recent years. Cagnetta told Whitehouse that if costs keep rising, it will be difficult to continue offering high-quality health insurance to the workers.
“For these Rhode Island small businesses and thousands more around the country, the rising cost of health insurance is simply unsustainable,” Whitehouse said in a statement afterward. “I’m working hard in the Senate to make sure a final health care reform bill lowers costs for businesses so they can focus on what’s important: growing their businesses and boosting our American economy.”
Whitehouse served temporarily this year on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee as it crafted and eventually passed a health care reform bill. That legislation is now being merged with a bill from the Senate Finance Committee, with the goal of producing a bill that the full Senate can pass.