Medical Coverage

New York--For millions of American workers, another health insurance benefit is going down the drain. Extensive retirement health plans, now maintained by most major companies and a few smaller ones, may not be around when you hit age 60 or 65.About 25 million workers and their spouses 40 and older possess or believe they possess -- lifetime company-paid health insurance. If they retire early, these plans keep on paying their medical bills. At age 65, they are covered for most of the expenses not paid by Medicare.

Early in July, a judge in Minnesota ruled against physicians at Hennepin County Medical Center who asked permission to disconnect a respirator from an 86-year-old woman against her husband's wishes.The woman, Helga Wanglie, was covered by private medical insurance, so getting the bills paid was not the hospital's concern. What worried the doctors and prompted their action was simply the futility of the treatment they were giving her against their better judgment.Mrs. Wanglie was in a persistent vegetative state, a condition in which the care she was receiving could mechanically keep her heart beating and lungs breathing but could not restore her to consciousness.

In this election year, America is embroiled in a critical debate. How do we maintain the quality of our health-care system while expanding coverage and reducing costs? How do we protect workers who lose their medical coverage when they change jobs because of pre-existing conditions? How do we provide health care for the millions of Americans who have no coverage?The bottom line is: Americans are afraid. They are afraid of changing jobs for fear of losing their health insurance. They are afraid of getting seriously ill with no medical coverage, cut adrift to shoulder astronomically high medical bills.

Whether it's something as mundane as a bout of the flu the night before a trip or as monumental as a State Department advisory to steer clear of the Soviet Union, last-minute snafus can unravel the most carefully crafted travel plans.The penalty for an unexpected illness or change of heart can be severe: up to the full cost of a tour, airline ticket or cruise if you cancel or interrupt your trip.One safeguard is trip-cancellation/interruption insurance, designed to protect you from operator-imposed penalties or other expenses if you must either interrupt a trip or cancel it before it starts.

HAILED AND dreaded as the most profound shift in federal social policy in six decades, the welfare bill of 1996 goes into effect tomorrow. Are we ready? Do we know what happens now?No. Uncertainties reign, and all states' situations differ. But a set of deep, tough issues will be getting attention.Number One: Are Americans, in their states and localities, up to forging a social contract determining what the privileged owe the poor? For decades issues of income redistribution, of equity in society, have been left to the federal government.

The Orioles have new orange and black banners along Russell Street and Pratt Street, and aren't they pretty, and aren't they grand, and shouldn't we be grateful? The banners proclaim "20 Years," and we're all supposed to understand and appreciate what that means - two decades since the fabulous, taxpayer-funded Oriole Park opened at Camden Yards. But, who cares? It's been nearly 30 years since the Orioles were in a World Series, 14-soon-15 since they had a winning season. In the Angelos era of Baltimore baseball, pessimism springs eternal in the human breast.

Kathleen Newell and her husband had been living nicely on his more than $100,000-a-year salary. But in the space of four years, her husband's job was eliminated, -- and with it their medical coverage -- they had to trade their lakefront town house for a small apartment and she was diagnosed with cancer and now depends on doctors and hospitals to treat her despite her lack of insurance."

THE highest-paid people in American higher education aren't presidents. They aren't administrators. They aren't business professors and others currently in high demand. They are professors in medical schools.The Chronicle of Higher Education is just out with its annual listing of the salaries earned by presidents and the five highest-paid employees at 25 prestigious private universities in 1988-89. At not one school did a president earn as much as his (or her, in the lone case of Hanna H. Gray of the University of Chicago)

WASHINGTON -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. chief executive Lee Scott joined one of his toughest critics, labor leader Andrew L. Stern, yesterday to unveil a political campaign to promote universal health care coverage. The two longtime antagonists are helping lead a coalition of labor and business leaders in trying to get Congress to end the nation's reliance on employer-backed health insurance and develop a system for providing universal low-cost coverage within five years. "What unites us here today is our shared belief that it will be a far greater America when we get affordable health care for all Americans," Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, said at a news conference at a Capitol Hill hotel.

With jockeys boycotting races at Churchill Downs and the nationally known Shane Sellers being escorted from the track in handcuffs, the National Thoroughbred Racing Association is stepping into the exploding crisis over jockeys' insurance. D.G. Van Clief Jr., commissioner of the NTRA, said yesterday that the NTRA will convene a working group to try to resolve the dispute that cost the Breeders' Cup a marquee rider and now threatens racing at the home of the Kentucky Derby. Terry Meyocks, special assistant to the NTRA and former president of the New York Racing Association, will preside over the group.