DAVID LAZARUS CONSUMER CONFIDENTIAL - Walking proof of insurance crisis
Tapan Chowdhury works in a shop at Hollywood and Vine, selling cheap plastic Oscar statuettes to tourists. Despite full-time employment, he's one of the 47 million Americans who doesn't have health insurance.
"It's very, very hard for me," Chowdhury said. He has diabetes and figures he spends about $200 a month treating his illness. "I always pay cash," he said. "It's very expensive."
I met Chowdhury, 52, while strolling Tuesday down Hollywood Boulevard. I wanted to see what people there had to say about the healthcare woes of General Motors Corp. and whether, like the automaker, they're finding the cost of insurance too much to bear.
In fact, I found only two people within the span of a dozen blocks who even had health insurance. The rest hold steady jobs and work hard but regard health coverage as a luxury they can't afford.
Reyna Fuentes, 45, opened a brand-new cafe Tuesday morning. It's called Lithium and still smells of paint when you go inside. Fuentes said she'd like to provide health insurance to herself and her employees. It's just too expensive.
"Maybe later," she said. "It's very difficult right now."
Some 73,000 members of the United Auto Workers went on strike against GM this week because of what the union called an impasse over job security. A key issue on the table is creation of a multibillion-dollar trust fund that would see the UAW taking over health coverage for thousands of GM retirees and their families.
GM, the largest private-sector purchaser of medical insurance in the United States, is eager to ease its healthcare costs as premiums continue to soar year after year. Many other employers are similarly looking to pass along a greater share of healthcare expenses to workers.
Wade Lawson should have such troubles. I met him standing alongside a sightseeing trolley, trying to coax out-of-towners into visiting the purported homes of movie stars. The theme from "The Andy Griffith Show" played from a nearby storefront.
As I recalled, no one in Mayberry had trouble paying for healthcare.
Lawson, 37, told me he used to be very well-insured as an investment banker for Merrill Lynch. Then he came to L.A. and got the acting bug. He landed a few gigs but nothing steady.
Now, he's a part-time tour guide, part-time surfer, part-time snowboarder and aspiring helicopter pilot. If it weren't for his domestic partner's coverage, Lawson said, he has no idea how he'd get insurance.
