When millions of our fellow Americans are without health insurance, and many dying because of it, I feel a moral obligation to speak out in favor of President Obama's health care plan which, while not perfect, will provide a lifeline for those who now must stand in lines that stretch in time and distance to receive often basic health care.

America's children are dying.

So are our elderly.

Why should that be in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, where five of the top 10 billionaires on the Forbes list live and where the per capita income of the lowest municipality of the 50 municipalities with highest per capita income is greater than many Third World nations?

Is it because, as many newspapers are reporting "Americans suffer from a compassion deficiency."

Sadly, I suspect this is true of many people.

I am equally certain that many simply do not understand the plan. Part of that problem stems from the massive media campaign launched by opponents of the health care initiative, which include the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, chamber of commerce and other big business, less concerned with lack of adequate medical care for the public than they are with continuing profits for their stockholders.

Limits on insurers

Under the proposed health care plan, insurance companies will be prohibited from placing annual or lifetime caps on the coverage a person receives and will likely prevent the denial of insurance based on pre-existing conditions and gender. Insurance companies will have to abide by yearly limits on how much they can charge for out-of-pocket expenses, helping 36,400 households in Connecticut alone struggling under the burden of high health care expenses.

Ain't' it awful?

For insurance companies, the answer is a resounding "Yes!" But for the hither to helpless consumer, it is a financial and medical piece of good fortune.

Before you dig your heels in against the plan, consider these statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau:

• Roughly 2.4 million people in Connecticut get health insurance on the job, where family premiums average $14,365.

• Since 2000, average family premiums have increased by 98 percent in Connecticut.

• About 19 percent of middle-income Connecticut families spend more than 10 percent of their income on health care.

• About 9 percent of Connecticut residents are uninsured, and 66 percent of them are in families with at least one full-time worker.

"Obama Will Ration Your Health Care," screamed a recent Wall Street Journal headline and, in theory, that is correct, although the intent is to frighten an already alarmed public with images of the elderly, disabled and terminally ill being denied medical treatment.

History of rationing care

But the philosophy behind the rationing of health care, or quality-adjusted life-years, did not begin with President Obama and, in fact, was written about in a 1990 Journal of American Medicine article.

It is not only the medical field that uses quality-adjusted life-years. Remember the push to install seat belts in school buses not that long ago? That soon fell by the wayside when a contractor, hired by the government, reported that, for an investment of $40 million, only one life per year could be expected to be saved. That's quality-adjusted life-years and many, if not most public and private businesses use it in one form or another to provide the best service possible to the greatest number of people.

The secret the health reform opponents don't want you to know is that rationing goes on every day, only it is insurance companies deciding what treatments you can and can't get based on how much of your money has gone into their pockets. This health care plan will actually reduce rationing by funding research into what treatments are effective, reducing payments for those that aren't, and leaving more money to pay for those that are.

President Obama's health care plan will provide millions of Americans with more medical care than they have ever had and, failing passage of this bill, are ever likely to receive.

Kathleen Mitchell is a community activist who lives in New London.