Robert Kustra

Considering the nature of the political heat at the moment, and the political environment he works in, Boise State University President Robert Kustra‘s statement on health care ought generate some shocks.

A while back, Kustra’s son Steve, who was insured, developed cancer. He was treated, and it went into remission. Afterward, his health care rates grew to the point that he dropped insurance. When cancer returned, he was uninsured and had trouble finding a physician to treat him.

In his state of the university talk today, the elder Kustra reflected on this:

“Over the course of the last 15 months, that we fought this battle, we saw close up what’s at stake in the current health care reform debate. We are living proof of how for-profit insurance companies and HMOs target people who are sick and who are ill and raise their premiums and raise their premiums until they can effectively kick them off of the rolls. . . . When we hear the ‘public option,’ and we hear the president thinking about dropping it from the plan, it worries me greatly that we would leave health care to the profit motive in America.”