Letter to the Editor: Huckabee's vendetta with healthcare

Mike Huckabee’s vendetta against ObamaCare included an opinion about its preexisting conditions revocation. He equated it with running out to buy homeowners insurance while your house is burning down. It reminded me of another time in my life.

It’s been 50 years now. With IU Business and Education School degrees, I worked for companies on Michigan Avenue in Chicago and North Meridian Street in Indianapolis as a health care claims examiner. Strict enforcement of the preexisting condition provision was our pathway to that corporate Promised Land—profit maximization. I liked working with these people. I was a company man. But after constant feedback from unfortunates who were getting their claims rejected, I lost all joy in this work.

It was the early 60s. One day, our CEO called us into a meeting and asked us what we could do about this new government-run threat for senior’s coverage. The silence was deafening. Then one associate popped up: “Who needs them? This old and ailing group will do nothing but gobble up benefits.” So Medicare was born. This 80-year-old is glad it was.

You can bet, though, that the cynical Huckabees of that day, if they had had their way, would have made it simply an aborted footnote in history.

—Jerry Gregory, IU alumnus