CINCINNATI, Ohio — Sen. Sherrod Brown heard from Ohioans who are having trouble paying their health care insurance at  a contentious town hall-style meeting on health insurance reform Tuesday morning at the University of Cincinnati.
A small business owner told Brown about how premiums and deductibles for employee health insurance have spiraled upward in recent years, according to a press release from his office. Brown also heard from a person who is employed full-time but is unable to get insurance because of a pre-existing medical condition, a young man who can’t get insurance because of his medical history, and a family member of a man who had to sell his belongings to pay his hospital bills.
According to reports from the Cincinnati Enquirer, Cleveland Plain Dealer and Associated Press/Fox8 News, the meeting was boisterous and sometimes close to being out of control. Those who support health care reform and those who oppose it were well-represented, according to the media reports.
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During the meeting, Brown, a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, outlined how he believes the committee’s proposed legislation would reduce private insurance premiums and out-of-pocket health care expenses, while giving Americans more affordable private and public insurance options during periods of unemployment.
On Friday, Brown announced the destinations for $14 million in federal stimulus money for biomedical research through National Institutes of Health grants:
- Case Western Reserve University: $3.2 million
- Ohio State University: $3.7 million
- University of Cincinnati: $3 million
- Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center: $2.9 million
- Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine: $288,916
- University of Toledo: $117,533
- Wright State University: $221,238
- The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital: $687,693
You can watch the entire Brown health-care town hall online.
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[Photo courtesy of Flickr user aflcio2008]