Fishing for coverage norm for some

NET LOSS: Brian Loftes, a commercial fisherman for 30 years, says that the expense of health insurance is equal to another mortgage payment and is currently costing him $16,000 annually. / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD
NET LOSS: Brian Loftes, a commercial fisherman for 30 years, says that the expense of health insurance is equal to another mortgage payment and is currently costing him $16,000 annually. / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD

Lindalee Jordan has diabetes. She has no health insurance. Still, she considers herself pretty lucky.
“Thankfully, my medicine can be in generic form. I take pills,” said Jordan, who lives in South Kingstown with her husband, fisherman Jim Jordan, and their teenage daughter.
When Jordan got a tick bite last year and thought she might have Lyme disease, she went to the emergency room, with the tick. “The doctor saw me in the emergency room for five minutes. I didn’t have a test for Lyme disease. It was too soon to take a test. That was $1,000,” said Jordan, who adds it would cost her about $1,500 a month for a family health plan.
“We’re just trying to make enough to sustain [her husband’s] boat and $1,500 a month is a lot of money,” Jordan said. “If the boat needs an engine, I wouldn’t have the money if I’m paying for health insurance. We have two people as crew on the boat, and they don’t have health insurance,” she said.
“I think about 70 percent of the people who work on boats, the crew members, out of Point Judith don’t have insurance,” she added. “Health insurance should be the norm, but now it’s unattainable.”
For Rhode Island fishermen and others who are self-employed or own a small business, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that goes into effect in January 2014 offers hope. That’s when everyone will be required to have health insurance.
But no one is quite sure yet exactly how it will change, or what the cost and the coverage will be.
“This is a new process, and there are a lot of questions out there,” said Ian Lang, spokesman for the Rhode Island Health Benefits Exchange, still a work-in-progress as it heads for the federally mandated Oct. 1 launch of the sign-up period, the preparation for the beginning of coverage in January.
“We will talk with the fishing community, and many communities and individuals, over the next few months so they can have their questions answered,” said Lang.
“The health exchange that’s being created through the Affordable Care Act is a marketplace where small businesses and individuals can compare plans and purchase insurance,” Lang said. “It will be online and there will be a physical presence where people can call or come in.” There’s no established location yet for the health exchange. But there is information available online about the tax credits intended to make health insurance affordable.
“We don’t have the plans yet, so we don’t have the actual costs yet. But there will be tax credits available for individuals who earn up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level,” said Lang.
That would mean tax credits would be available for an individual who earns close to $45,000, and for a family of four, that qualifying income is about $95,000, Lang said.
The main point that may give some element of comfort to fishermen struggling to pay for health insurance is that they will have choices they probably don’t have now, Lang said.
“Historically, fishermen may be buying in the private market, and there may be limited choices,” Lang said. “Working through the exchange, our hope is that by bringing people together and giving them information to make comparisons, they can get a product that fits their needs.”
All the plans will cover essential health benefits, including preventative care, he said.
The cost of health insurance has been a huge issue for fishermen for a long time, said Rich Fuka, president of the Rhode Island Fishermen’s Alliance. “It’s a very unpredictable income. That’s how it’s always been,” said Fuka, who’s been a fisherman for 30 years. He has health insurance on his wife’s family plan through her job at a bank.
“I know too many fishermen who just don’t have insurance. The majority are deckhands,” Fuka said. “Most of the wives work, so some of the fishermen are being carried by their wives’ plans.”
Lindalee Jordan was an office manager in a country club and had a family plan for insurance until 2008, when she left the job. She made the change because her husband bought his boat and she took over the extensive bookkeeping, so he could get out and earn a living fishing. With the end of the country club job came the end of the family’s health insurance.
She hasn’t heard details of how the mandated health plan will work, but figures it will likely be an improvement, first of all, on the emotional level. Her husband and his crew are covered for injuries on the boat, but in their personal life, being without health insurance is a nagging worry. “It scares the heck out of me. I think about it all the time,” said Jordan. “We’ve been healthy, knock on wood. But it’s a fear. If something happens, I don’t want to lose my house. I think having some kind of health insurance will take a lot of pressure off a lot of people.”
Brian Loftes, who’s been a commercial fisherman for 30 years, isn’t so sure the mandatory health insurance is going to be a good thing.
“When I was younger, I didn’t have health insurance,” said Loftes. “Then I got married and had a family. If it was up to me, I wouldn’t have it.
“It’s ridiculous. It’s insane. It’s another mortgage payment,” Loftes said. “It’s costing me about $16,000 a year just for me and my wife. It’s just shy of $4,000 every quarter. My stepson has been covered by his father, but we’re going to put him on our plan soon. We figure it won’t cost much more.”
Loftes, a third-generation fisherman, doesn’t think the government should be able to require people to have health insurance. He‘s already up to his eyeballs in government regulations on catch limits and other rules for fishing, which he said limits his income. He’s not sure yet how the required health insurance will affect self-employed fishermen.
If the cost stays high or goes higher, it will come out of the earnings for him and his two crew members, because he can’t do much about how much income he gets from selling fish or his set expenses, he said.
“I have a 65-foot stern trawler, a dragger. We tow nets,” Loftes said of his boat named Evan Christine, for his son and his wife. “We go out fishing for two days and it’s $1,600 to $2,000 just for fuel, off the top, of what we catch. Then there’s ice and food and other expenses.”
Loftes said he talked with his doctor about the required health insurance and that added to his concerns.
“The doctor told me that just to write me a prescription, he will have to kick it up to some bureaucrat who’s not a doctor,” Loftes said. “My doctor is thinking about retiring early. We’re going to have a shortage of doctors because the ones that can pick up and leave are going to leave.” •

No posts to display