Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!usa-post Newsgroups: usa-today.issues From: usa-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: usa-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: issues Wed, May 27 1992 Date: Wed, 27 May 92 05:20:54 EDT Message-ID: 05-27 0000 DECISIONLINE: Issues & Debate USA TODAY Update May 27, 1992 Source: USA TODAY:Gannett National Information Network Here are some of the issues and topics being debated across the nation Wednesday morning in USA TODAY: Insurance; Deficit; Harassment. TODAY'S DEBATE - EMPLOYEE COVERAGE: USA TODAY'S OPINION: Just when the health-care crisis looked about as bad as it could get, it got worse. The latest horror: Your employer may be able to rewrite your insurance policy to cover every illness but yours. John McGann of Houston found this out the hard way. After he filed claims for AIDS treatment, his employer capped AIDS coverage at $5,000 for a lifetime. The limit before the switch: $1 million for all covered illness. ... Two courts said the company was within its rights, because McGann's employer "self-insured" - by paying directly for employees' medical bills rather than paying premiums to an insurer. State insurance laws don't apply even though 65% of employers self insure. ... If refusing coverage once people become ill is legal, then health insurance is worthless. It's been headed in just that direction. ... Insurers and employers woo the youngest and healthiest, refuse to cover pre-existing conditions, and hike rates when people get seriously ill. ... The Supreme Court may decide to take up McGann's case, too late to do him any good. He died last summer. The justices and lawmakers still have a chance to do the right thing for millions of others. They should make insurance do what it's supposed to do. OTHER VIEW: BRUCE FEIN, a Great Falls, Va., lawyer and writer: USA TODAY's impassioned cry for curbing employer-employee health insurance options betrays a triumph of the heart over the head. ... Before establishing a group health plan for its employees, Houston-based H&H Music worried that spiraling costs could make it unaffordable. Accordingly, it expressly retained the right to terminate or alter benefits. The initial plan offered lifetime benefits of up to $1 million to all employees. After an employee afflicted with AIDS submitted an insurance claim, H&H placed a ceiling of $5,000 on payments for AIDS-related illnesses. ... It enabled H&H to avoid abandoning employee health coverage because it could become prohibitively costly, and abandonment would have disadvantaged all. The ceiling also prevented a disproportionate share of benefit funds going for AIDS treatment, an inequity since AIDS is characteristically self-inflicted through drug use or sexual promiscuity. ... If employers forfeit the freedom to structure group health plans as they deem prudent and fair, many will stop providing employee health benefits, and employees will be the ultimate losers. VOICES ACROSS THE NATION ON BUDGET AND TAX CHANGES TO CUT DEFICIT: REDLANDS, Calif., Craig Bell, 50, marketing manager: I would reduce military hardware spending but retain the military personnel and increase entitlement spending. For too long now we've made "Daddy Warbucks" richer while the streets of Los Angeles are in disarray. LAS VEGAS, Nev., LaRue Worthen, 63, homemaker: In order to balance the budget, we need to quit spending. The Constitution states we must provide for our common defense and promote the general welfare. It doesn't say we should provide for the general welfare. By providing it, we break down the family unit. WASHINGTON, D.C., Judy Chesser, 43, lobbyist: I'm opposed to a balanced budget amendment because it's too much too fast. You can't possibly reduce a $300-$400 billion deficit between now and 1995. It would devastate the economy. We need to control the deficit, but we have to do it in a responsible way. NEW YORK, N.Y., Edwin Pen, 20, student: I would cut the military. We have too much going there and not enough for housing, training, AIDS and the homeless. If we meet those goals first, we could get more people to work, paying taxes, and we wouldn't have the deficit problem any more. ORLANDO, Fla., Scott D. Levine, 32, physician: I don't feel cutting Medicare would solve any problems. I also do not feel defense should be cut. Increasing taxes is not the answer, as we are already paying tax on our employment, property and sales. The answer is to make the government run more efficiently. TOPIC - MILITARY SEXUAL HARASSMENT: Kay Krohne, a retired Navy commander, consultant on gender relations and author of a 1991 doctoral dissertation on the effects of sexual harassment on female naval officers, was interviewed by USA TODAY'S Sharon Shahid. WILL THE 10% OF FEMALE NAVAL ACADEMY GRADS FACE SEXUAL HARASSMENT? There's a much higher incidence of sexual harassment in the military than in most other organizations. In 1988, the Defense Manpower Data Center did a two-year survey of military men and women. The results showed nearly two out of three - 64% - of the women surveyed indicated they had been sexually harassed. HOW DOES THIS COMPARE WITH OTHER ORGANIZATIONS? The U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board conducted surveys in 1981 and 1987. Both found 42% of the women surveyed experienced sexual harassment. If you make a comparison between those two surveys, you can see the women in the military are 50% more likely to be sexually harassed. IS IT CONNECTED TO THE MALE-DOMINATED CULTURE OF THE MILITARY? Until recently, women in the military were really no challenge to the men with whom they served. But as women in uniform show that they can do these nontraditional jobs and do them well, they start to pose a direct threat to an exclusive men's club. Issues & Debate Editor: Beth Mann. (1-919-855-3491) Making copies of USA TODAY Update (Copyright, 1992) for further distribution violates federal law. This article is copyright 1992 Gannett News Service. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM