By Blackwell Thomas

CARTERVILLE - Wrapping up a two-day tour of Southern Illinois, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin held an open forum on health insurance Thursday morning.

About 20 people attended the one-hour sit-down at John A. Logan College in which Durbin outlined his health insurance proposal, which aims to provide health care for small business employees and the self-employed.

Durbin began by first describing the care available to federal employees.

"Every year, once a year, different companies compete to provide mine and my wife's coverage," he said. "It's like going to buy a car. It works. Why can't we take the federal employee experience and make it the experience of small businesses?"

Durbin said American taxpayers are footing the annual health care bill to the tune of $8,000 per person.

"That's the most in the world; the next closest is Luxembourg, which spends about $4,000," he said before adding that Americans should "get more for their money."

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 47 million Americans don't have health insurance. To put a face to this number, Durbin asked two real estate agents without health insurance to tell their story.

Ron Tialdo of Belleville said he lost his insurance years ago when the Illinois Association of Realtors changed providers. Shortly after he lost insurance Tialdo was diagnosed with diabetes.

A series of surgeries, including the amputation of his foot, has left Tialdo with between $150,000 and $200,000 in medical debt.

Chris Mitchell of Swansea has heart problems and said he too was unable to afford health insurance.

"The last quote I got was $600 a month," he said. "That's just out of the question."

JALC President Robert Mees said the school is spending about $3.5 million a year on health insurance. That figure, he said, is growing by about 10 to 15 percent a year.

Durbin said his plan would be voluntary and would involve small businesses pooling together at the state level to help "spread the risk" and attract competitive bids from prospective providers. Durbin said he has bipartisan support for the proposal and will continue to build a coalition of supporters before bringing it to Congress, hopefully in the next legislative session for federal lawmakers.

The plan includes tax credits of up to $1,000 per employee if the employer covers 60 percent of the premiums and a bonus tax credit if they pay more.

"We can't afford the current situation," he said. "Eight thousand dollars per person? We can't keep going in this direction."