Securing statewide healthcare.

• Author: Ajango, Deb
• Position: Health reforms

Three years ago, Jessica Leavitt received full health benefits as a training-coordinator supervisor for Lane Community College in Eugene, Ore. "It was a good job," she says, but after living and working in the area for 25 years, her four children grown, she was ready for change.

She sent resumes to several Alaska businesses, paid off three months' worth of bills in advance, and then headed north, confident that with her background, she would soon get a job. "The only bill I chose not to pay was health insurance," Leavitt admits. "I got a complete checkup before I left. I figured, I'm young, I'm healthy, and I knew that once I got to Anchorage, I'd get benefits again with a new job. I didn't think I'd need insurance in the short interim."

Two weeks after arriving, Leavitt landed an interview with a credit union in Anchorage. A few days before her second interview, she felt ill while watching television at a friend's house. "The next thing I knew," she recalls, "I was being rushed to Humana emergency room. I vaguely remember a doctor telling me I had a brain tumor the size of a walnut above my right eye. They needed to operate immediately. The first thing I said was, |But I don't have health insurance.'"

Two days later, the tumor was removed. Though the operation was successful, Leavitt was burdened with $32,000 in hospital bills for her four-and-a-half day stay. "It was hard to ask for help, but I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life paying it off. I was encouraged to file for bankruptcy," she says.

Leavitt's story has a happy ending: After an appeal to the state, she did receive financial help. Not only were her bills paid, but she had a second interview with the credit union and was offered the job. Today, as a training coordinator, she writes, designs and evaluates training packages for the seven branches of FedAlaska Federal Credit Union, and she receives full health benefits.

But many Americans fear that Leavitt's story could happen to them, wiping them out financially. They also feel forced to keep jobs they are not happy with simply to keep their insurance.

Leavitt's case epitomizes one of the main reasons the country is looking at changing its current healthcare system. Though polls show the majority of workers are satisfied with their employer--furnished insurance, a growing number believe that healthcare and the jobsite should have nothing to do with one another. Many people also believe that money could be saved and...