If businesses and politicians think the 45 million uninsured are not their problem, they are wrong. Really wrong. The uninsured get health care, they just don’t pay for it – taxpayers, employers, and those of us with health insurance do. And they get a lot of care – around $100 billion worth.
Out of that $100 billion, three-quarters is covered by cost-shifting to those patients with insurance, and one-quarter is self-paid. And because upwards of 30% of the uninsured who are admitted to hospitals are there for avoidable conditions and 18,000 die prematurely each year, the economic costs in terms of excess care and forgone productivity are immense.
There are overt taxes and hidden taxes – and the uninsured represent a $100 billion hidden tax, borne by employers who offer health insurance, employees who pay part of their premiums, and taxpayers.
The next time someone says we can’t afford to cover the uninsured, tell them we already are, and we are paying way more than we would if they had insurance.
What does this mean for you?
Higher taxes and premiums due to lack of political will.
Mar
21
But making poor people feel guilty and stressed for accessing services is the American way! You don’t propose creating a system that allows them to access care with dignity, do you??
“Out of that $100 billion, three-quarters is covered by cost-shifting to those patients with insurance”
True. And Kaiser Family Foundation says the great majority of the uninsured are poor and low-income Americans.
http://www.kff.org/uninsured/upload/7571.pdf
I think your’re right that private insurance rates would come down if the uninsured cost shift disappeared. But I think it won’t disappear if Medicaid won’t face up to its mission to provide insurance for these poorest Americans. I think the reason Medicaid has failed to do this is that Congress and the States are afraid to touch Medicaid. They’re afraid to acknowledge the massive mismanagement and fraud in the present Medicaid system, and afraid of the need to raise more tax money to cover the 45 million currently-uninsured poor. So they just keep passing the bucks.
So I also think Medicaid constitutes a disgraceful exhibition of political spinelessness in America on the subject of health care.
I am uninsured by choice, and I am not poor. Instead of getting services for free, I need to pay 3 to 4 times as much for health services as is billed by insurance companies for the same services by the same doctors and clinics.
I choose to live healthfully and spend my healthcare money wisely, so I still spend less than I would for health coverage. However, I should not need to subsize those with health insurance, as is the case now.
Doctors and hospitals cannot afford not to participate in health plans, yet they cannot afford to participate in those plans without supplementing their incomes with excessive charges to those of us who pay out of pocket.