Posted on 09/10/2009 6:15:17 PM PDT by Halfmanhalfamazing
Chairman Johnson and Members of the Subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to be here today to discuss the characteristics of people without health insurance and the relationship between health insurance premiums and insurance coverage. Although more than 240 million people in the United States have health insurance today through a variety of private and public sources, millions of others do not; and the percentage of Americans who are uninsured has risen in each of the last two years for which information is available.
In my testimony today, I will discuss some important characteristics of the uninsured population that have received relatively little attention but that have important implications for federal policies to expand insurance coverage. I will also discuss the implications of rising health insurance premiums for insurance coverage rates and the potential costs of federal programs to expand coverage.
In recent years, it has been frequently stated that about 40 million Americans lack health insurance coverage. That estimate, by itself, presents an incomplete and potentially misleading picture of the uninsured population. The uninsured population is constantly changing as people gain coverage and lose coverage. Furthermore, people vary greatly in the length of time that they remain uninsured. Some people are uninsured for long periods of time, but more are uninsured for shorter periods.
There are several alternative measures of the number of people who lack insurance coverage. One describes those people who do not have coverage for a sustained period (say, one year)--the long-term uninsured. Alternatively, another identifies how many individuals have experienced any spell without insurance during a particular period. Finally, the most commonly used measure (a mixture of those two others) counts the number of individuals without insurance on any particular day or in a certain week. Those different approaches yield different numbers because of the continual movement of people into and out of the uninsured population. The Congressional Budget Office's (CBO's) recent analysis(1) found that in 1998:
* Between 21 million and 31 million people were uninsured all year;
* At any point in time during the year, about 40 million people were uninsured; and
* Nearly 60 million people were uninsured at some point during the year (see Figure 1).
I know there are conservative websites out there which catalog this myth, but I haven't seen any which give this graphic to go along with it.
And not only that, but when you engage with a liberal fool regarding the myth of 47 million uninsured, hitting them with a CBO link shuts them up. They can't do the usual old "b-b-b-b-b-but! Right wing source!" as a way to ignore the facts.
Enjoy
As far as the analysis itself goes, take note how it doesn't mention illegals. From what I saw, it also doesn't go into those americans who don't even want healthcare coverage, for whatever personal reason.
Number of illegals.
My husband and I were uninsured for two days this year as a result of job loss. HOWEVER - COBRA was available in the event that a major health issue had come up in those two days. Many people don’t realize that you can sign up for COBRA after the big health issue. COBRA is retroactive and you don’t need to sign up for it from the beginning. So even though it was only two days, and we could have been covered for something if we needed it, we still would have counted as uninsured, from what I’ve read...
Though it is a good article, it is 5-1/2 years old.
Yeah, but it's also people who choose not to be insured because they "are healthy and can't afford insurance." I talk to those people after they have a heart attack/stroke/bad accident and have to declare bankruptcy because they owe $50,000 in med bills. I personally know several people with household incomes around $40k-$50k who say they "can't afford" the $150 employee contribution per month. These people are now telling me they want public option. I guess they don't realize they will be forced to buy that insurance that they "can't afford" now, and it will cost more! You can't fix stupid.
—————Though it is a good article, it is 5-1/2 years old.——————
The numbers are old.
The three separate ways to count the numbers aren’t.
This is how government shifts the numbers in a way to make it’s argument look better.
And always note how the media is on the government’s side.
bttt
And always note how the media is on THIS government’s side.
I’m not sure I understand.
The american liberal media loves the US government. It loves european governments. It also loves the UN.
Or did you mean with compared to Bush?
The media was very much on bush’s side during the 2006 amnesty debate.
The media hated all the nativists. Remember?
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