Activists hold demonstration for universal health care

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Derek Cooper knows the costs of being uninsured.

In the year since losing his state-sponsored insurance because of missed payments, he has racked up a $26,000 doctor’s bill and costs of roughly $3,000 a month for medications to treat Crohn’s disease and a rare vascular disease.

Now, he is advocating for universal health care.

“It would be a matter of paying your taxes,” Cooper, 33, said of a universal system.

Cooper joined about 20 other advocates Thursday evening in downtown Baltimore to protest health insurance companies.

The protest was a part of nationwide demonstrations coinciding with the annual conference in San Francisco of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade association representing 1,300 insurance companies.

The Maryland Universal Health Care Action Network, which organized the demonstration, favors a single-payer health care system similar to Medicare in which one entity — either a government or a contractor — collects all fees and pays out all costs.

“Everyone would be covered and essentially have the same benefit package,” said Rich Bruning, a Maryland UHCAN member.

A single-payer system would reduce health care costs by cutting out administrative expenses such as claims negotiation and advertising, Bruning said.

Del. Karen Montgomery, D-Montgomery, an advocate for universal health care, said the state’s approach to solving the health care crisis was to take it “bite by bite.”

“Every time you take a bite, it’s growing on the other end of the uninsured,” she said.

However, it’s this progress that should be lauded and encouraged, said Vincent DeMarco, president of the Maryland Citizens Health Initiative, an advocacy organization that supports health care for all citizens, but not a single-payer system.

“We believe there is a lot of good in the present system on which we can build,” he said.

DeMarco pointed to recent measures that expanded health care, including a bill allowing young people to remain on their parents’ health insurance until they turn 25 and another bill that helped fill a Medicare coverage gap for seniors.

CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield officials said the protests “do little to advance the national debate regarding viable ways to increase access to health care coverage.”

“Ensuring that all Americans have timely access to quality health care will require a collaborative effort of consumers, health insurers, employers, the health care community and government,” officials said in a statement.

smichael@baltimoreexaminer.com

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