Health Care in America -- The Underinsured

Here's a little bit more information to add to the health care debate below.

A new Consumer Reports study identifies the “underinsured” -- accounting for 24% of the U.S. population -- living with skeletal health insurance that barely covers their medical needs and leaves them unprepared to pay for major medical expenses.

Forty-nine percent of people overall, and 43 percent of people with insurance said they were “somewhat” to “completely” unprepared to cope with a costly medical emergency over the coming year.

Some 16 percent had no health plan at all, including many working respondents whose jobs didn’t offer insurance or who couldn’t afford the premiums of deductibles of the available plan.

When added to the population of “uninsured” -- approximately 16% of the population -- a total of 40% of Americans ages 18-64 have, at best, inadequate access to health care. The report, published in the September issue, also finds that most employers are struggling to keep up while the insurance behemoths prosper from the misery.

In the first of a series of reports on America’s health care crisis, CR paints a profile of the “underinsured,” explains what it means to be insured but not adequately covered, and tells of the costs and consequences for everyone, including people who are currently “well insured.”

The report is based on a survey conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center in May 2007, which sampled 2,905 Americans between ages 18 and 64. The survey found evidence of increasing frailty in the U.S. system of health insurance on almost all fronts.

The full article can be read here.

Lex has argued that "The common sense answer is this: for people with health insurance, the American system is the best." I think that should be emended to "for people with good and full health insurance or a ton of money, the American system is the best that money can buy." Unfortunately, that's quickly becoming a minority of Americans, because private for-profit insurance is so expensive. That's why one of the biggest causes of bankruptcy right now is medical bills (Americans may survive cancer in greater numbers, but some of those who do survive sell their homes or go bankrupt to pay for it). The high cost of for-profit care is also why #3's HMO sucks (which given the title of #3's post must be none other than Kaiser-Permanente).

I might also add that economically speaking, for-profit health care is crazy. Health care is an essential commodity (a sellers' dream with an "inelastic" price): your only choices as an uninsured or underinsured consumer are to not "buy" it and thus suffer or die, or pay the bill and go broke or bankrupt, or run from hounding creditors. The majority of those who are uninsured or underinsured are not lazy, beer-drinking, chain-smoking slobs. They're hard-working, tax-paying, patriotic Americans, some of whom like #3 may run marathons but will still need care at some point. They deserve better.