More Than One Third of Non-Elderly Adults Lack Insurance

The problem of 47 million Americans not having insurance has been widely quoted, and Families USA has looked more specifically at adults under the age of 65. Those over 65 (as well as the disabled) qualify for Medicare, and other programs such as the endangered Children’s Health Insurance Program cover many children. Families USA found that among non-elderly adults “more than one out of three people under age 65—approximately 89.6 million Americans—were uninsured at some point during 2006–2007.”

Conservatives who oppose any action on health care often argue that these numbers are not realistic indicators of the problem as they include those who were uninsured at any time during the year. Families USA demonstrates that this is a serious problem as “nearly two-thirds were uninsured for six months or more and over half were uninsured for nine months or longer.”

3 Comments

  1. 1
    Brenda Turner says:

    Thank you for blogging about Health Care Reform! The growing number of uninsured, now at over 47 million, the high cost of insurance and the release of the 2008 presidential candidates’ health care plans have brought the topic of health care reform to national headlines and prime time news.

    But what about the individual stories of American citizens facing a health care crises today? How do they navigate the broken health care system? At Outrageous Times.org we talk about the issues concerning individuals and small businesses. In addition to reporting on pending legislation and the record profits of pharmaceutical and insurance companies, we address the real life stories — emergency room care, mental health issues, drug abuse, obesity, preexisting conditions and children’s health. By letting our voices be heard-together we can find common sense solutions to reduce health care costs and increase access to quality health care for all.

    Outrageous Times is our monthly grass roots newspaper, dedicated to health care reform now and is distributed to over 20.0000 readers in Mercer County, WV and Tazewell County, VA. The web site http://www.OutrageousTimes.org is a both a local and national health care resource. We would like to invite you and your readers to submit your stories, experiences, observations and opinions to OutrageousTimes.org. Comments posted on OutrageousTimes.org are often reprinted in the Outrageous Times.

    Thanks in advance for your contributing your knowledge to OutrageousTimes.org.

    Sincerely,
    Brenda Turner
    Publisher
    Outrageous Times

  2. 2
    Ed says:

    While I sympathize with uninsured and underinsured, I do not see a resolution to the problem anywhere. Canadian and Great Britain have experienced many problems with their universal coverage. These include losing doctors, long waits, politicians seeking care in the US because their own country’s plan doesn’t provide the best possible care. I have insurance, and its good coverage. What I am truly scared of is getting taxed more, losing my insurance to a government plan and ending up with worse coverage, longer waits, etc.. I don’t make a lot of money, so the money I make is important to me. I find it hard to believe a universal plan would leave me with more money in my pocket and better coverage. At the end of the day will I be broke again so someone else can reap the benefits of my labor? More taxes would drop my net income below the poverty line.

  3. 3
    Ron Chusid says:

    You might have good coverage now, but there are a lot of people declaring bankruptcy because their employers cut back on insurance, or often because they found that their coverage wasn’t as good as they thought it was once they got sick and really needed it. Besides, if your coverage really is good this won’t necessarily affect you. You can still keep your insurance. If the assistance for those without coverage is financed by rolling back the Bush tax cuts on those making over $200,000 it doesn’t sound like this will affect you.

    Plus, you are already paying for coverage for others without realizing it. The cost of the uninsured leads to a tremendous amount of cost shifting, increasing your premiums and increasing the risk that your employer will reduce or eliminate insurance (as is happening in many businesses).

    Plans such as those in Canada and Great Britain are not what is being proposed, so the stories of long waits, etc are just scare stories which have no bearing on the plans being proposed.

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