Posted on 05/09/2005 5:49:33 AM PDT by FNU LNU
America's 44 million uninsured: Who are they?
By Samuel G. Dawson
Opinion
We constantly hear of the need for a national single-payer medical system because of the 44 million Americans who don't have medical insurance coverage. Since the election, politicians wanting to address moral issues speak of the "immorality of the 44 million uninsured." While some are concerned about shortfalls in Social Security, others point out that Medicare and Medicaid shortfalls are already many times worse! Before we let the politicians commit us to universal medical coverage, it might be wise to find out who these millions of uninsured are.
A significant percentage are not Americans at all, but illegal immigrants and other non-citizens. Should we be obligated to pay for their medical care? I'm nearly afraid to ask. If my next-door neighbor didn't buy insurance himself but came to my house with a gun and forced me to buy it for him, it'd be a crime and he'd be prosecuted. However, if legislation is passed to make the responsible among us buy insurance for the irresponsible, if we don't toe the line, the guys in the white Fords will come for us with their guns. And if we resist, they won't be prosecuted.
Another large group comprises children whose parents either cannot or will not provide medical insurance for them. Nowadays, that means the ones who work and pay for such for their own children should work even harder and longer and pay for the children of the irresponsible, too.
A significant portion of the medically uninsured are adults under 35. At that age, I thought I was invincible, too, but I didn't expect others to work hard to pay for my medical care.
Another significant group is the chronically uninsured - people who go without insurance either because they have not needed it or do not believe in it. Why not make them buy it rather than making the rest of us pay for it?
Also included in the 44 million is anyone unemployed and uninsured for one day during the year. Also included are those who won't take a job that provides "good" health coverage because they smoke dope every day and can't pass a urine test. So, we make the real dopes buy it for them. What an argument.
The number also includes the wealthy who self-insure. For example, Rush Limbaugh - worth hundreds of millions of dollars - is uninsured. He pays out of pocket. There are many wealthy like him. No matter how much you like Rush, do you want to work harder and longer to pay for his health care?
Also included are those who choose to spend their money for an SUV or tattoos instead of health insurance. Most of the "employed" uninsured make a conscious decision not to be insured. They want cable TV, cell phones, new cars, expensive vacations, and generally think that medical care should be "free" because it's a "right." Suppose these types don't want to insure their SUVs - should we buy that for them, too?
Among the 44 million are medical consumers who have "wised up" to the fact that paying cash for medical care is cheaper than insurance, as their doctors charge them as little as one-third of what they bill insurance companies for the same services. This can't be right. We should work harder to give them medical insurance so they can pay the full price!
The 44 million includes low-income people who are eligible for state-provided free or nominal-cost insurance but who don't bother to sign themselves or their children up for it. Does this justify flogging the ants into buying insurance for the grasshoppers?
Providing these numbers would be a good task for an enterprising investigative journalist, wouldn't it?
Does the number of uninsured even matter? No one can be denied health care. In that sense, there are no uninsured, as everyone has access to health care.
Why is it good to add another enormous government organization that collects a fee for managing (read:restricting) the normal relationship between doctor and patient? What is the value added?
Dr. Thomas Sowell has pointed out that probably the first country to have universal health care provided by the government was the Soviet Union.
After decades of socialized medicine, what was the result? In its final years, the Soviet Union was one of the few countries in the world with a declining life span and a rising infant mortality rate.
If universal health care is so great, why don't we add another layer of government control and improve things even more? While we're at it, we could add universal coverage for home, auto and life insurance. To pay for it all, we could even have income insurance.
Samuel G. Dawson of Amarillo is a recent retiree from the aerospace and software industries.
Who went out and counted them?
BTTT
I've got a friend that makes good money. He chooses to buy all sorts of gadgets and goodies for his house, but chooses to go uninsured. I suspect his scenerio is not an isolated one.
One of the reasons so many under 35 are uninsured is that liberals in many states have enacted "community rating" requirements. That means everyone pays the same rate, regardless of age. And that means healthy younger people pay the same rate as people much older who are, on average, less healthy and more costly.
That means a young person would end up paying a rate that is much higher than his/her actual expected costs. So the rational choice is to go without insurance. Then we hear the same liberals complaining about all the uninsured.
Private, high deductible insurance ($2600/$5000 deductible a year) can be as little as $70 a month for a single person, $150 for a family. Most of these "uninsured" people could afford $ 70 a month.
We would be way better off if nobody had health insurance. Then we would just go to the doctor and pay him. Less paperwork. Less government control. More doctors. Less clerks. Less cost. Less hassle. Better health. No HMOs.
It's irritating to listen to people who state they can't afford health coverage. Many simply refuse to buy coverage because it isn't something tangible.
A girl in my office refused to buy health insurance but signed up for a Bally's membership for "her health." When she got pregnant Bally's understandably did not cover her prenatal visits.
Last time I heard it was 45 million...no 43 million...okay it's 45 million, now.
Have you ever noticed that any Democrat created "crisis" usually "impacts" 40-45 million people? Somewhere there is a DNC memo that dictates that the number of people affected by any problem must be 40-45 million.
The same "Three Stooges" outfit (themselves existing on tax money) who counted 15% of the population as gay and "only" 3 million illegal criminal aliens in California...
"No one can be denied health care."
Not quite true. No one can be denied health care if they come into a hospital emergency room needing critical care. Now, if an uninsured person goes to a private physician's office, he may be denied elective care or asked to pay cash. So be it - nothing is free.
But too often, my neighbors vote for a clown who cares more for salamanders than for people.
DING, DING, DING!
You got that right...the primary peril (in my humble opinion) is the slippery slope we go down once this entitlement is passed...liberals will NEVER stop with healthcare...next will be housing and after that food...it will never end, and they will tax us into oblivion.
"After decades of socialized medicine, what was the result? In its final years, the Soviet Union was one of the few countries in the world with a declining life span and a rising infant mortality rate."
Isn't this what the watermelons want? A declining population to rid Mother Gaia of excess humans?
Many young upwardly moble workers choose to be uninsured. Just another Liberal talking point that is total BS!
I don't know if I would agree there. Insurance (by a non-government entity) is a good thing. Can everyone afford to break a leg and spend $5300 for a cast?? Or get cancer and spend a half-million bucks?
"I've got a friend that makes good money. He chooses to buy all sorts of gadgets and goodies for his house, but chooses to go uninsured. I suspect his scenerio is not an isolated one."
Sounds like me through most of my 20's and 30's. I'm not sure I knew more than a handful of people my age who cared about health insurance when I was in my 20's. We just paid cash at the doctor.
Good point. I have medical ins. but no dental. My dentist gives me a 30% discount for cash. The insured patients are paying 30% more than me.
LOL. Health insurance costs less per month the Cable TV and Cell phone payments.
But is it really "private insurance" if public tax money is spent to subsidize it?
No, I mean totally private. I realize that isn't really what was being talked about.
BUMP
Rather vaccuous rant. No data to support it, just spleen.
Most young people are healthy but there's always the possibility of being in a car accident or breaking some bones while skiing. It's still better to have the insurance.
Not if you have a chronic illness. And even if you don't, what concrete figures do you have? I'd like to know what cost and coverage you're thinking of.
Look what the gubmint did to schools. Everybody complains about the state of our schools - from both sides! Why can't they make the leap from that to a vision of the future of gubmint health care? Are they too intellectual (*snarf!*) to see it?
They are counting the illegals among the millions; you can bet on it.
I'm tired of drinking Inver House. I need Scotch Insurance
I remember a report in the New England Journal of Medicine that stated 43% of those using Emergency Rooms in the Metro-Boston area for primary healthcare were "undocumented" aliens.
Wow-- what a story. Kids with immature and selfish parents really are penalized, aren't they?
By Chronic Illness do you mean a Pre-Existing Condition?
What the author didn't cover is the insane cost of dying in a hospital. I have watched two persons die in hospitals. My wife's mother and mine. Mine (who carried every medical insurance police available) took 18 days in intensive care to die. The cost totaled about $88,000. This essentially took everything that she had accumulated over her lifetime.
My wife's mother had a stroke which confined here to a wheelchair and a nursing home for about 3.5 years. During this time she did not know where she was or who she was. Nursing home costs were on the order of $270/DAY. This consumed a large portion of the money that her husband had earned in his life.
IMHO until the obscene medical costs that can strike one are controlled, there will be calls for universal coverage.
PS I don't think young healthy persons should have to have medical insurance.
NO NO NO!!!
As a selectively engineered plant, watermelons are inextricably linked with humans. They do not grow in the wild. Strawberries, too, would not be big and red and delicious without human intervention. The most notorious human engineered plant is corn which has no known antecedent in nature. Rats and roaches are highly dependent upon human activity.
Most importantly, we have just learned that greenhouse gasses are vital to protect the earth from warming up. Clear air means warmer temps means global warming. Ole Mother Gaia needs us to keep the sun in check. We must be careful with the extermination of the human species.
Sorry for the rabbit trail. I could not resist.
But if your neighbor came to your house with a contagious disease that threatened your life or your children were exposed at school, you would want someone to take care of the sick person that was spreading the disease for the safety of the public.
I think so - as in the case where someone has had Parkinson's or MS for several year before trying to purchase private insurance on their own.
I agree with you on the community rating problem. And if this were changed, you would probably see the uninsured number decline.
I'm a vet from Viet Nam. Spent 4 years in the Marines. When I enlisted, one of my benifits was free health care the rest of my life. I would be a fool to pay for health insurance when I have it for free. Are they counting me as one of the 44 million?
How many of those 11 million illegal immigrants are included in those uninsured?
Take Mexico's illegals for instance.
Showing up at the emergency section of a hospital gives them free treatment.
In view of those $20 billion that Mexicans (both legal and illegal) annually transfer to their homeland country, these foreigners need to be held liable for medical care reimbursements.
Go and get, at the Mexican Consulate, a voucher covering your medical expenses when care becomes necessary, and at the time of treatment pay with this by Mexico guaranteed voucher.
It's one thing to send money out of the country and not stimulate the local U.S. economy, but at the same token stiff the the U.S. out of medical expenses.
That was not free insurance. We payed for it in that we sacrificed life and limb.
The government has already proven that it is unwilling to do this---see "AIDS". When the disease was first diagnosed, those affected should have been quarantined from society. Because most of the sufferers were "queer", the government refused to "discriminate" against a "minority" by refusing to institute quarantine and sex-partner tracing that have been standard public medical practice for normal heterosexuals for years.
Another segment of the population who are uninsured, are the temporary workers. The agencies are too cheap to provide health care coverage even though they make a heck of a lot of money from the employer who employs the employee of the agency.
After a period of time, however, the agencies offer the temp a chance to purchase their own health care coverage, but this is not all agencies.
Are you sure about this? Most insurance is significantly higher than cable or cell phones.
For someone like me, young, healthy, who doesn't like to medicate away every ache and ailment, and is rather skeptical of the medical industry in general, insurance is basically charity. I can simply take what I might have been paying for insurance, and put it away in a savings account. Even post-taxes I'll have more to call on in an emergency than I would through insurance - and I won't have an HMO accountant vetoing my decisions as to what is best for my well-being.
Or they developed this condition will having insurance. The costs associated with these conditions are amazing (drugs, hospital stays, dr visits).
Where do you guys get this stuff from? The insurance tables for 20-30 yos? If you are in your 50s and have a medical condition insurance can cost 1200 bucks a month, and even more, I know because that is what my insurance would cost If I could pay for it, I can't so I don't have any.
I am AGAINST national health insurance make no mistake on that, but there are a whole group of people out there who can't afford medical coverage, and I mean really can't afford it, not just say they can't or choose not to, but simply can't make the premiums.
As I said I am against any form of socialization but please try to be more honest or do more research when you slam people who don't have medical coverage. There are many who truly can't afford it and you make us sound as if we are some lazy irresponsible jerks and it just isn't true.
But what about conditions like TB or small pox that can be passed in schools (for instance) with the carrier not getting medical attention until they have passed it on? They didn't have medical insurance and didn't seek medical care. This is one of the problems with immigrants.
However, I would like to have some real hard numbers on these assertions.
Health insurance cost is invisible to many because it's covered by many employers.
Your post is simply not true. I was self-paying $233 per month for coverage for quite some time. It got to be where I couldn't afford it. Incidentally, I decided I couldn't afford it after going to the doctor to treat an infection and was billed $500 for the office visit and follow up. I never ever met the annual deductable and was paying $3000 a year. You may be able to find cheaper monthlies, but the deductables are even higher, and few can afford to self-pay insurance AND pay any medical visits up to a few thousand dollars.
When my husband and I were both under-employed, we were without health insurance at all for over a year. Thankfully, we're better off now, and have coverage.
My experience is that people with a chronic, pre-existing medical condition usually cannot get private insurance other than through an employer. They must be added to the wait list for their state's "chronic health condition pool" (I forget the term), and once they are added, or a slot becomes available or something, they pay their premium.
One thing this country needs is an ability for citizens to form insurance groups outside of the employer structure so that citizens with higher-cost health issues can still be added to a diversified pool of insurance purchasers. Right now that ability does not exist.
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