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Fri 21 Sep, 2007 10:24 am
Study finds 89.6 million lacked health insurance
By Jordy Yager, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 21, 2007
One-third of people in the U.S. under 65 went without coverage for some or all of the last two years, reports an advocacy group.
WASHINGTON -- -- More than one-third of the people in the United States under the age of 65 had no health insurance for some or all of 2006 and 2007, according to a study released Thursday by Families USA, an advocacy group for the uninsured.
The 89.6 million individuals identifying themselves as lacking insurance for at least a month, according to the advocacy group, was almost double the number of uninsured reported by the Census Bureau for 2006.
"It's simply unacceptable that for lack of basic health coverage, nearly 90 million Americans had to live in fear of illness and injury in the last two years," said Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees national healthcare programs.
California had the largest number of individuals uninsured during some or all of that two-year period -- 13 million, or nearly 41% of state residents younger than 65. Texas was second, with 9.3 million. Americans older than 65 are eligible for Medicare and were not considered in the Families USA study.
More than 70% of those without insurance in part or all of 2006 and 2007 were employed full time, the report said.
Half lacked insurance for nine months or more.
"This is a story of working people, working families. This is not a story of people looking for a handout," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA. "These are people who simply can't afford to pay for health coverage with their modest paychecks."
Since Families USA's first study, covering the years 1999 and 2000, the number of periodically uninsured individuals has risen by 17 million. The most significant factor in the that increase is the rising cost of insurance, Pollack said.
According to the most recent census data, about 47 million people said they were uninsured in 2006. That figure comes from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, which is conducted yearly. Among other things, it asks people if they have been uninsured in the previous calendar year.
But that survey does not give an accurate assessment of the uninsured, Pollack said, because it can exclude people who may have been uninsured for less than the whole year.
The Families USA report considered data from both the Current Population Survey and the Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation, which included people who said they were uninsured for just part of a year. The report projected through 2007.
"This is not a contradiction, but a fuller picture of Census Bureau data," Pollack said at a news conference.
BBB, You should post this on the Universal Health Care thread.
I recently went to a conference of women entrepreneurs, all the attendees own a successful small business of some variety. At one point a poll was taken as to how many of the women had health insurance, out of almost 250 women only 102 women had insurance. Of that group only 15 were not getting their insurance from an employed spouse. Thus in this group of 250 successful business women, only 15 (all single) could afford independent health insurance. It's a major reason why independently owned American business' are going to continue to decline.
GW, If your assumption is correct about small businesses disappearing from our landscape, our country is in bigger trouble than we think, because they make up most of our economy.
Interestingly it is the insurers that are now pushing for universal health care. Not socialized medicine of course, which instead of rationing care would put limits on costs. It is easy to see the reason why. They forced HMO and PPOs on us to ration health care so they could raise profits. Still not enough profits. They kept raising rates until companies had to start passing costs to the workers. They kept raising rates so that many companies are saying forget it we just cannot afford to cover employees anymore. The employees, instead of getting (extremely expensive individual coverage) said we can't afford it either and are dropping out of the healthcare system.
The insurance companies now see they are pricing themselves out of the market so what are they doing? Getting together with government to mandate people buy insurance, look to the state of Ma. to see the future of healthcare. You can't afford it, fine, we'll have the government take it out of your taxes and give it to us. This is basically the plan Hillary now espouses. We get the worst of both worlds the highest healthcare costs in the free world, one of the worst healthcare systems in the free world (except for emergency and hi-tech) and one where you are not allowed by law to opt out. And anyone who thinks that in the end they won't be able to deny service because of pre-existing conditions doesn't know how Washington works. So you'll have mandated healthcare but still have large out of pocket expenses
So why are they doing it. Corporation profits are higher than they have been in our nation's history. The insurance companies are competing for investment dollars in the stock market. Other industries have made these gains by moving jobs and industries to countries that pay pennies on the dollar compared to the U.S. Besides reading x-rays and a few other things, the healthcare industry cannot do this, thus their strategy of forcing everyone by law to buy from them.
With an unknown amount of illegal's streaming across our borders, who will get healthcare also (if not were racists, right), how can you even budget for universal healthcare? No problem you just keep raising taxes on what is left of the middle class.
All I can say is I'm glad I'm heading for 50 and am not 20 years old, those poor kids have a loooong row to hoe!
BBB:
As always great info from you. Thanks!
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