How may people are uninsured?
The answer is it depends who you ask. It appears that the answer is NO. National Institute for Healthcare Mangement (April 2008) Brief: says there are now 47 million, or 15.8% of the population uninsured. Is that what it really says? Read more.. Page 1 of the brief has some interesting census data on the uninsured that you should keep in mind.
Let’s narrow down the 47 million number. 5.6 million illegal immigrants. 12.0 million people eligible for Medicaid or State Assistance but not enrolled. Now we are down to 31 million: Let’s break it down more”. 7.3 million are those that make in excess of 400% of the federal poverty level (FPL). For a family of four that means they earn at least $85,000 per year I am going to go out on a limb and say that there are no political action groups looking out for the higher income (yes, $85,000 AGI is higher income) groups.
Now we are down to 20.5 million unisureds. Broken down as: 1)4.5 million at 300-399% of FPL; 2)8.3 million at 200-299% of FPL and ; 3)14.4 million at 101-200% of FPL.
So Healthcare reform is really about educating 12 million on what already exists and providing varying levels of assistance to 27 million more,of which ,Maybe, 8 million people will really get benefits.from major healthcare reform without tax increases paying for their coverage.
On July 17th, 2009, Howard Dean said on CNBC that the core issue is not about providing insurance to the uninsured, its ” about the Private Sectors failure to control costs” .
He claims that Medicare is more effective than the private sector in controlling costs. Is he right? Sort of. Medicare mandates that doctors accept what they pay. I am not going to tell you that Medicare pays providers less than actual cost, but the doctor groups will. (refer to the search term “Medicare reimbusement cuts 2010”)
If the issue is truly that “THE PRIVATE SECTORS FAILURE TO CONTROL COSTS”, you should know what any of these bills true purpose will be.