The recession, coupled with increasingly unaffordable health insurance premiums, pushed the number of those without insurance for some part of 2009 over the fifty-nine million mark.
Here are a few relevant findings from a new CDC report:
– the number of uninsured has increased by over a million for each of the last few years
– 40% of the uninsured had at least one chronic condition such as diabetes, hypertension or asthma
– those with a chronic condition were more likely than insured people to go without necessary care
– 50 million were adults, the rest dependents
– One-third of middle-income adults weren’t covered for some part of the year. Fully half of the increase in the uninsured were middle income adults.
– for those fortunate enough to have coverage, 26.6% of those under age 65 years were enrolled in a high deductible health plan (HDHP); past research indicates many of them didn’t have enough funds set aside to cover their deductible.
For all of its warts, the Affordable Care Act will dramatically reduce the number of uninsured, covering an additional 32 million Americans.
One can – and some loyal readers certainly will – argue that this somehow ‘overstates’ the problem of uninsurance as it includes people who went without insurance for only a few days or weeks. In reality, the data show 33.9 million Americans had been without insurance for more than a year at the time of the interview – over eleven percent of the population.
Which raises a very difficult question. If the new Congress is looking to ‘repeal and replace’ the ACA, what replacement will stem the rising tide of uninsurance?
Anyone??
Nov
16
Should congress repeal the ACA with no meaningful, mandatory replacement then we will continue to see more people with out health insurance with more and more care being delivered with higher severity levels and higher costs. These costs will be “shifted” some where and we all will pay more in the form of higher premiums and taxes.