True Health Insurance Crisis - Maybe Not

Trying to find a solid figure for how many Americans are uninsured is nearly impossible. It appears the Census Bureau released a report called, “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2005.” They put the number at 46.6 million uninsured, based on collected census data. However, other groups have a much lower number. Please read on.

One of the things found in the report was there was 9.5 million that where “not a citizen!” This drops the number to about 37.1 million. Mikael Moore, of the movie "SICKO" has said himself that unless you are an American then you would not be considered for coverage under any national health plan. This was stated by Moore on “ABC’s Dateline” show on June 17, 2007.

On May 23, 2007, Katie Couric reported on CBS’s “Evening News” that there where 47 million Americans who “COULD NOT AFFORD INSURANCE.”

On July 10, 2007, Moore repeated the statement on CNN’s “Larry King Live” show.

Let us check the Census report referenced above-

There are 8.3 million Americans without insurance who earn between $50,000 and $74,999 annually. Then you can add on 8.7 million more, which make in excess of $75,000 a year. The medium income in 2005 was $46,326. One could conclude that these families elected not to take part in partial employer funded or purchase their own health care insurance. Subtracting the 17 million, who have elected not to purchase health insurance, from the 37.1 adjusted figures the uninsured number drops to 20.1 million.

What is interesting is a study done by the highly liberal San Francisco based The Kaiser Family Foundation reported even a lower number then the 20.1 million. They report the number they could calculate was between 8.2 and 13.9 million who lack health insurance and make under $50,000 a year.

Kaiser went on to state that the 8.2 chronically uninsured only includes those uninsured for two years or more.

It is also worth noting, that, 45 percent of uninsured people will be uninsured for less than four months according to the Congressional Budget Office. Using the high figure 20.1 million uninsured would be reduced to 11.1 million based on the CBO figures. Which is near the average of the two numbers calculated by The Kaiser Foundation.

Also it should be noted and not calculated into the figures is how many of the uninsured would be covered under Medicaid or state ran children coverage if they had a claim. Because they are healthy and not needing any health care they are lumped into the uninsured group.

As of today the US Census Bureau estimates the US population is 305,342,612 people. Using the 20.1 million the uninsured is 6.6% of the population. Using the high 13.9 million Kaiser Foundation number converts to 4.6%. Using the uninsured based on CBO/The Kaiser Foundation average, the number for the real long term uninsured is 11.1 million or 3.6 percent of the population.

One really needs to ask is this really a health insurance industry led boondoggle? The insurance companies know if health care is transferred from employer based that fewer people would purchase any coverage. More people would run the risk of staying healthy over investing in health care. So that does not help them. So their continued increases in employer provided coverage runs the fore mentioned risk.

Health insurance companies also suffer large claims often in employer funded coverage because of catastrophic claims. An entire year’s collected premiums could be wiped out with one major claim.

Under employer funded insurance coverage it is difficult for an insurance company to weed out people with chronic health needs. They have no way, out outside of raising premiums, to the company and risk losing the business. But if they raise the premiums too much the employer will seek a new company to provide coverage for their employees or cancel the employee plan. Hence they run the risk of loosing again.

However, if they could convince the government to offer a plan to underwrite basic coverage based on individual coverage they would be in. The government picks up the employees with chronic diseases, along with the rest of the employees. Much like Medicare’s Part “A” the coverage is very basic and any person that can afford it carries Medicare Part “B.” Even with this coverage a person can often find they have thousands of dollars still owing after Medicare coverage is exhausted.

Health insurance companies will offer their own deluxe Part “B” but only for those with perfect health. Should they contact a chronic illness (diabetes, cancer, heart trouble, etc) they will be cancelled or premiums rose so high they can not afford it. At that time the insurance company will be thrilled.

Rest assured if the health insurance industry have their way everyone will have their own policy and they will cherry pick who can afford true adequate coverage in their Part “B” program.

Our health care system may not be as broken as we have been led to believe. That what we are getting is a major smoke screen so the health insurance industry can reap profits to a level they have never obtained before.

Granted we see higher insurance costs but are they being inflated in hopes of pushing us into a “semi national health program” to benefit these insurance companies? It will take an HONEST congress to look into this matter, but any of that hope seems to be slipping away day after day.