Over half of the uninsured in America could probably afford decent health insurance. Are they ignorant or do they just think they're invulnerable?
Despite the everpresent danger of unexpected illness or injury, about 16% of the United States population has no health insurance of any kind. The bulk of these uninsured fall in a low-middle income range and are in their 20s or early 30s. The majority of them are employed full-time earning enough that they don't qualify for Medicaid and they are mostly young enough that they don't feel immediately threatened by major health issues (for demographic details see covertheuninsuredweek.org).…
Article comments
26 - Dave Nalle
Well bird, enlighten us as to what the missing details are. I just went by the Business Week article, my own experience with insurance and the information I was able to research on the net. I know there are all sorts of issues with prior conditions and qualifications for policies, but I was actually trying to keep things simple and general for the 80% or so of people in this group I'm addressing who could go out and get insurance if they were willing to bite the bullet and do it.
Dave
27 - Dave Nalle
Gonzo, perhaps they don't want the government to interfere anywhere at all, and when given the choice between a party which will interfere everywhere and one which will at least leave us alone in some areas they choose the lesser of the two evils.
Dave
28 - gonzo marx
"the lesser of two evils"...who "don't interfere"
that is the fucking funniest thing i've heard in quite a while...let's have a look at this "lesser evil"
wants to overturn Roe v Wade (and nivade a women's right to Privacy and Choice)
record budget deficits (was a nice surplus)
thinks the White House doesn't need a warrant or court review to tap your phone or data mine the Net(ignoring FISA laws and the 4th Amendment, the "logic" being the presidential war powers in Article 2 of the Constitution...one problem here, Congress has NOT declared a War...but that doesn't stop them)
wants to "regulate" all media so it's safe for "the children"...thus removing both the Choice from Parents but also Prental Responsibility
says it wants to promote Education, then passes this new budget which cuts student loans and still doesn't fund it's own "no child left behind" regulations
says it wants to help in healthcare, but cuts Medicaid/Medicare funding...while touting it's own "drug plan" that cost MUCH more than it claimed it would cost...but made it Law that there could NEVER be any negotiation with the Pharma Corps to improve pricing
on and on...
record "pork" spending while cutting services to Citizens, yet increasing corporate welfare...
lobbyists, DeLay indicted, Libby indicted for perjury and Obsctruction of Justice...Abramoff pleading guilty in 2 states....more Fun to come from ALL of that in the months to follow
but these bastards are the "lesser" of the "evils", whose concern over your privacy are so great that they want ot regulate who can get married while they peek into your bedroom to see if you are commiting "sins" with who you Love
fucking spare me...k?
tnx
Excelsior!
29 - David M. Brown
"Freedom is my birthright...I'm American."
Ditto, but it's the birthright of us all...even in lands where it's not recognized at all.
Government intervention has made getting good medical care harder in this country than it has to be, but not as hard as it is in countries where you have to wait for months to get an urgent operation. The answer in both cases is rolling back the interventions and instituting a fully free market in health care.
A fine article, and I'm amazed at the venom with which some persons greet the knowledge that they have the means to be more self-sufficient than they want to be.
30 - gonzo marx
interesting..a "free market" for health care
and here i had always thought the root of the current problem was when Doctors stopped pursuing a Vocation to Heal and instead greedily executed a business model where Profit was the prime motivator
like the pharma corps
your mileage may vary
Excelsior!
31 - gracefulboomer
"I don't see how health insurance is a right. are we unable to do anything for ourselves? why would I want the big nanny government to raise my kids and determine what medical treatment u should have and where I can live and how much I can earn. screw that. i'd rather die free and sick in a ditch than live as a slave of the stata."
For 23 years my family was treated by the Big Nanny Government. Government Socialized Medicine by Government paid physicians, surgeons, and health care personnel, in Government hospitals, clinics, and Big Nanny Government auditoriums. Well baby checks, immunizations, preventative medicine, scheduled vision, hearing, learning disorder screenings, advanced placement testing, language skill, scoliosis, any other -itis or condition and other screenings, x-rays, dental, pre-natal, labor and delivery (the food was not covered) prescriptions, 1 MRI, 3 sprains and a fracture, 1 arthroscopy of the left knee, and the various scrapes and stitches of active children. Little leather and rubberized handmade heel lifts placed in two (limit) pairs of shoes at one time - new ones every three months and then at six month intervals (unless a shoe size had changed) for 12 years. Really it is hard to remember all of the medical services. Probably a lot more. Really, I am sure a lot more.
Every now and then the Big Nanny Government even offered very nice bags of Big Nanny Government bulk purchased generic products of aspirin, tylenol, alcohol, peroxide, assorted bandages, cotton balls, antibiotic creams, anti-diarrhea, sinus, and other items to make up a well stocked home medical kit . Free Big Nanny Government learning clinics and certified Big Nanny Government speakers or equally certified community guests who addressed such issues as 'How To Control Cholestrol' 'Connecting the Dots Linking Poor Dental Hygiene To Heart Disease' 'Fit at Thirty, Forty, Fifty' 'Fitness for Life, Not Just For Readiness Exams' 'Lose Baby Fat The Safe And Effective Way For Good' and easily available booklets and leaflets (or they could be ordered at no charge) on nutrition, child development, music and mental health, increasing mental skills- you name it if the government printed it or deemed it worthy to buy in bulk it was there for those who were interested. Not one of the above examples were mandatory or compulsory, although my friends from the 'outside' in the states sure enjoyed the lectures when seating was available. No one took your name down if you passed on the goodies, either.
The Big Nanny Government also offered van or bus service to the Big Nanny Hospital or outpatient clinic when the spouses and their children were restricted by space to one car limits, and for the younger lower paid enlisted rates who simply could not afford a second auto or on all overseas bases.
LUMPY#22- I can't recall even one time that the spouse or kids felt like either slaves or chucking it all and living in a ditch. I do recall large-letter poster notices from the Big Nanny Government explaining detailed 'Patient Rights' and 'Informed Consent..' It is insulting and mean-spirited to suggest that members of the Armed Forces of the United States do not raise their children. That was a personal ill-informed grade A head-in-ass low-rent accusation to make about the finest group of soldiers and sailors the whole damn world has ever produced, and even more insulting to the spouses and *those kids* who love them. Shame..shame.
I am quite sure also that 'pre-existing condition' makes absolutely no sense if you think about it.
Silly me, I had always thought our neighbors to the north - Canadians- were free.
32 - diana hartman
thank you gracefulboomer...this family has been getting the goods of the Big Nanny for over 20 years and i gotta say i've wondered for a long time why the civilian citizens of the united states haven't demanded the same...
it should surprise no one that my healthcare options are greater coming from Big Nanny than for my civilian counterparts who see Dr Deductible...
you're already paying for someone else's healthcare with your taxes...why is it such a stretch to insist, dare i say expect, that it pay for your healthcare as well?
but hey, that could just be the slave talking...
33 - Dave Nalle
Government intervention has made getting good medical care harder in this country than it has to be, but not as hard as it is in countries where you have to wait for months to get an urgent operation. The answer in both cases is rolling back the interventions and instituting a fully free market in health care.
Really good point, David. I wonder what a really free market in healthcare would be like. It might bring us back to gonzo's idea of physicians who heal first and profit second. There was a movement at one point to try to create physicians cooperatives, but it got largely squashed by the big hospitals and the insurance companies. The idea of these cooperatives was that you would pay in advance to subscribe to basic health maintenance services from a group of doctors, and they would have a reciprocal arrangement with a hospital for their patients to get treated. Where it was tried it seemed like it was substantially lowering costs and improving and personalizing services, but try to find one of these health coops now.
A fine article, and I'm amazed at the venom with which some persons greet the knowledge that they have the means to be more self-sufficient than they want to be.
An awful lot of people are intimidated by the challenges entailed in truly being responsible for themselves.
Dave
34 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I guess you Yanks don't want to deal with the fact that other nations have better access to health care than Americans do, eh?
When you find that you are poor and in the process of having a heart attack, that stripped down vesion of medical care (a $1,500 deductible?) doesn't bring a lot of comfort. Some would rather be dead. But on the other hand, poor people dying does reduce poverty, doesn't it?
35 - Dave Nalle
Ruvy, there are certainly some things that need to be fixed in the US Health Care system. In the article I reference the Washington State system, and IMO it should be a model for the rest of the states to follow. It does very much what is needed to close the gap between private insurance and Medicaid and does it pretty efficiently. I may have to write an article on it.
However, when you do have a heart attack, a $1500 deductible is very little to spend - even if you're one of the working poor - to be treated by a medical system which has double the survival rate for heart disease of many European systems. $1500 and alive beats free and dead every time. Plus 'free' healthcare isn't free, you just pay for it at the point of a gun at tax time.
Dave
36 - zingzing
oh shit! dave nalle is in my state! i knew there was something creepy about the place... although i'm more in agreement with him about this issue. we do have a less-than-perfect... sometimes less-than-adequate... health care system here. it's true. but! socialist systems may not work either. the wait times can be deadly.
an old roommate of mine was from... sweden? denmark? one of those cold places. they have a socialist health care system. he said that if two people entered the system with the same problem on the same day, the system would look at their worth to society. if one was a minimum wage-making 40-something, and the other was a 30-something corporate pig, the corporate pig would go through. on the other hand, if the minimum wage-making 40 something was only up against an 85-year-old pensioner, the 40-something would go through. maybe it could seem fair to the inhuman state, but who makes these decisions? how is one person to judge the worth of another? what gives them the right?
i really can't say i totally believe him on the subject (he never had anything good to say about socialism... but he did grow up under it...) because it just seems so wrong. but, that is what he said. anyone ever heard of anything like this?
our system may be flawed, but i've never died under it. never had to wait for anything other than a teeth cleaning. and taxes in countries with socialist health care are outragous. so, really, there is no free health care there, only compulsive health care, where you have to wait forever to get treatment and you may be judged by your perceived "worth" to society.
37 - Dave Nalle
Zing, I live in Texas. Is that where you are? Or did you get confused by my reference to the Washington state healthcare system?
As for people from Denmark. I had a friend in college from Denmark. He would come into his dorm room every night so drunk he didn't know where he was and then urinate in the corner. I think that says it all.
Dave
38 - nugget
so, all the Danes are insured, pissing drunks?
39 - Dave Nalle
Pretty much, Nugget, but the Finns are worse.
Dave
40 - nugget
yikes. Thanks for the article by the way. I won't get lost in this rhetorical war concerning redistribution responsibilities.
I'm 24 years old and currently chewing on health insurance options. Practically speaking, it gave me more insight than I had.
41 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Dave, you wrote,
a $1500 deductible is very little to spend - even if you're one of the working poor - to be treated by a medical system which has double the survival rate for heart disease of many European systems. $1500 and alive beats free and dead every time.
That's nice. If you have a heart attack, and if you have the $1,500 that you badly need for luxuries like rent, food, etc., you can just piss it away on deductibles and get another heart attack realizing that you're dead broke. Sounds like a plan!
Just to note for you, I know nothing about Europe or its health systems. But I know that the hospital I went to for my heart attack is the most advanced in the country, and others from other countries hustle to keep up with it.
You know from my other articles that I have no love for the government here. But in all but one field (transplants) I'll match up Israeli medicine against American medicine any day of the week and probably come out ahead.
You know - all those Jewish doctors...
42 - Dave Nalle
Ruvy, like any insurance it's a gamble. Limiting your total risk to $1500 with no guarantee that you'll have a major illness is a good gamble. And with payment plans, $1500 is $100 a month for a year and a quarter. Not an unbearable burden.
You know - all those Jewish doctors...
Have happy mothers.
Dave