Health Plan Hot Topic in Small Cities

In the small towns that pepper south east Texas, you'll find Michael Sabatelli making house calls.

He's no doctor, but without what he brings to the table, it's mighty tough to get one.

"You are going have to take a little higher deductible," he tells Kathy Breaux, owner of Winnie Farm and Ranch Supply.

These days Sabatelli's profession is arguably among the most challenging on the planet, that is finding small business folks health coverage that won't completely drain their bank accounts.

On this day the independent health insurance agent lays out the fundamentals of a re-configured policy for the coming year.

"Your out of pocket will be a thousand more on this policy, but your premium savings is going be right at $3,000 a year,"he explains.

For Kathy, that amounts to a banner deal considering no other insurer would likely want her business.

That's because she's a cancer survivor, bound by her pre-existing condition to the very same health insurance provider which challenged her integrity after the tumor was discovered.

"Like maybe she had ovarian cancer five years ago, which was really ridiculous," says Duffy Breaux, Kathy's husband. "So we had to fight. We fought for months and months and months."

It was a battle Sabatelli, who crusades for his customers, helped them wage and win. These days the agent is scrambling to keep rising premiums from cleaning out the Breaux's cash register, but he can only do so much.

Over the next 12 months Duffy and Kathy will shell out better than $14,000 dollars for coverage.

"The insurance rates are just ridiculous," says Kathy Breaux.

Despite the punishing premiums and the ugly claim battle, the Breaux's just can't get on board with president Obama's promise of lower costs through a government run public option.

"I think they are out of touch with the real world," says Duffy Breaux.

"They can't secure our borders, they can't run the country, so how are they going to run our health care ?", adds Kathy.

Over a glass a tea at a burger joint in Beaumont, Sabatelli offered his thoughts on the health reform effort.

"The worst thing they could do is do nothing," he says with conviction.

Sabatelli is dead certain the Democratic president and his supporters in congress are biting off more, in a health care sense, then the nation can chew. America, he believes, can pare down what its citizens pay for coverage with a much simpler prescription.

"I really wish they would do tort reform," he suggests arguing the legislative measures to limit expensive medical law suits have lowered rates in states where they've been enacted.

"That's like shooting a target with a rifle instead of a shotgun," he adds.

Another way to cut costs would be to allow health insurers to sell policies across state lines.

"Right now you have fifty boards of insurance regulating all these insurance companies, so they all have to jump through fifty different hoops," explains Sabatelli, who also favors making health insurance mandatory for everyone in order to spread the risk and inject fresh money into the private system.

Down the road in Lumberton at the Flagship Mail Room and Emporium Gary and Terry Celli are scared heavy-handed health mandates out of Washington could make their three store operation too expensive to earn its keep.

"A small guy like me can't afford to give out insurance to employees," says Gary.

"It would be very sad for my husband and our business and I don't know if we'd come out of it," adds Terry.

The Cellis have to sell scads of scented candles and decorative wares just to cover their own $750 per month health policy, a plan that leaves Gary's recently re-constructed knee unprotected.

To keep a lid on cost Celli's risking the financial consequences of a re-injury, a roll of the dice thats led him to call for at least one critical reform.

"All insurance companies should have to take pre-existing conditions. Why cherry pick ? It is not fair," he argues.

As for putting their "faith" in a "public option" the Cellis believe anyway you wrap it an Obama-style system is going to cost both them and the country far more than its worth.

"Are my taxes going to be raised to pay for that public option ?," asks Terry with a look of concern.

"I just think quality is going to go right through the floor," adds Gary.

Small town voices, big time worries that the so-called cure" for America's health care troubles will prove worse than the disease.