My name is Marc Fenster, and I’ve never been one to write letters like this. Most days, I’m too busy running the small insurance brokerage my family started back in 1938. Four generations later, I’m still sitting behind that same wooden desk as my great-grandfather, doing my best to honor the legacy he handed down.
Yet despite being in the business of helping others find affordable coverage, I’ve had to change my own plan due to a steep premium increase that raised my existing plan completely out of budget.
So I downgraded. I moved to a cheaper monthly plan, with smaller networks, higher deductibles, and fewer covered services. It’s the kind of plan people settle for because there simply isn’t room in the budget for anything else.
There’s a certain irony to being an insurance broker who can barely afford his own health insurance. When even a lifelong insurance man like me can’t afford the stability of the plan he had last year, something is broken.
And my congressman, U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, has allowed this to happen by failing to take action to extend healthcare tax credits that keep our plans affordable.
Behind every premium increase is a real person making impossible choices—people like my customers, like me, and like my grandfather, who would shake his head to see how far we’ve strayed from the idea of “affordable” care.
I hope that those who are supposed to represent this community, like Scott Perry, can understand this and take necessary action.
When the cost of care outgrows the family business | PennLive letters
