No One Chooses to Be Uninsured
I'll grant that in a country with 300 million people, absolutes are nearly impossible. Certainly there are some who electively remain uninsured and their reasons for such a choice is rooted in individual circumstance. As in part one of this series of articles, the best that can be said is that most Americans agree that our healthcare system of Corporate Profiteering on levels unseen in the most heinous examples of Corporate Greed is in crisis and must be revised. In this second part, I will demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of uninsured Americans do not choose to be so.
First, let's look at a few established facts.
- Of the 82 million Americans who were uninsured at some point between 2002 and 2003, more than half came from families making below 200 percent of the official poverty line - $37,320.00 for a family of four. Nearly two-thirds of people in families below the poverty line were uninsured.
- In non-partisan surveys of the uninsured in American, nearly six in ten said they were without health coverage because they could not afford it. Another 22 percent said they were uninsured because they were unemployed, their employer didn't offer coverage, or they were employed in several part time positions and were not eligible to receive employer provided coverage. Only 7 percent said they could afford health insurance and chose not to have it.
Second, let's look at a few of those uninsured.
- In Uninsured in America, Harvard researchers interviewed an Idaho hairdresser. She makes $900 a month, working full time, after taxes. The salon she works at offers a health coverage plan that would cost her $200 a month for a $1,000 deductible. She could 'choose' to buy into the offered health insurance but only if she then 'chooses' to try to live on $700 a month. When she cannot make that work - she has rent, utilities, phone, and food to pay for as well as mandatory vehicle insurance and car payments and gas (no big mass transit system in Idaho, folks) - she is classified by our government as 'electing to be uninsured.'
- Chicago actor/writer/teacher Joe Janes tells this story on his blog:
I have two part-time jobs as a teacher - one at a private institution and one that has to follow state regulations on education - and it kind of pisses me off. I love both my jobs...I feel like I make a difference at these jobs, but I can't survive on their income - my girlfriend will attest to that! I'm fine when both are in swing at the same time, but that's the problem with part-time jobs. I only get paid when I work. No vacation days, no sick days, no health insurance, no 401k. And, in my case, no guarantee on the number of classes.Continued on the next page Page 1 — Page 2
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Alec
Don " an interesting and provocative post. In considering it, I think you make a fair point that very few people choose to be uninsured. However, this does not lead ineluctably to the conclusion that the only alternative is Universal Health Care.
RE: Of the 82 million Americans who were uninsured at some point between 2002 and 2003 …
This appears to fudge the figures. The most recent Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report notes 46.6 million uninsured in 2005. However, they show only 24.4 per cent of people with incomes below $25,000 as uninsured in 2005. In addition, 8.5 per cent of people with incomes over $75,000 are uninsured.
RE: Joe can certainly 'choose' to get a third job. He can 'choose' to quit teaching altogether and seek a higher paying job. Hell, he can 'choose' to move to Port Clinton, Ohio and get a job as an office drone for a major corporation, but why should he have to make any of those choices? This is the United States of America, the wealthiest nation on the planet, right? If all Joe is 'free' to do is to become part of the slave class for corporations that routinely downsize and outsource to other countries, why not move to 1930's Moscow?
A time machine that could take you to 1930s Moscow would make Joe richer than the people pumping out iPhones. More seriously, it is interesting that you suggest that it is somehow the responsibility of the government to subsidize Joe’s life choices, or to make them easier or more comfortable. There is also something faintly unpleasant in your implication that a lot of people who ARE office drones, presumably less cool than Joe, should underwrite his life choices, especially if he is going to sneer at them in return.
RE: Eliminating for the moment the scores of healthy, white 20-year olds who believe that they will never get sick or encounter an accident that would require medical care…
Again, your comments border on being obnoxiously condescending when you imply that only young white folks are touched by the glow of health and an easy life.
But apart from this, let’s reject your assertion that 82 million people are uninsured and use the more conservative figure of 46.6 million Americans. And let’s be more conservative and reduce your assertion that only 7 percent say that they can afford health insurance and choose not to have it, and use 4 percent instead. This would give us about 11.9 percent of Americans who are uninsured and in need of health insurance.
Now, I do not see that there is a reason to force everyone into universal health insurance just to make sure that 11.9% of the country has a health plan.
RE: Who, in their right mind, would choose to not be insured if it only cost them an extra couple of bucks come tax time?
This is a totally false argument, since there is no plan and no cost estimate on the table.
2 - moonraven
Sorry, canb't accept your piece because you lost all credibility when you referred to Christian Scientists--and others--as religious nutbags.
I am not a Christian Scientist, but those who are take its tenets very seriously.
Calling them religious nutbags is infantile and shows incredibly bad judgment on the part of someone who appears to want people to take him seriously.
Not a chance. Good points flushed into the toilet by petulant political incorrectness.
3 - Dave Nalle
Not to be difficult, but...
She makes $900 a month, working full time, after taxes.
She needs to either move or get a different job. At that rate of payment she's got to be the worst hairdresser in the US.
Here in Austin a mediocre hairdresser is going to make $3000 a month minimum.
You can make more than $900 a month with a starting level job at WalMart or MacDonalds, anywhere in the country.
Not a good example.
Dave
4 - Don Hall
Alec-
"I think you make a fair point that very few people choose to be uninsured. "
That's all I was attempting to do with this second part.
Moonraven,
Anyone - ANYONE - who believes that praying will cure their illness or injury is a nutjob. If someone claimed that, instead of going to a doctor, they preferred to howl at the moon in effort to cure their cataracts, I'd call them a nutjob. Thanks for reading, though.
Dave,
The example came from the book "Uninsured in America" and, in spite of the severity of the woman's situation, I'd wager there are far more in her situation than should be in the richest nation on the planet.
5 - Clavos
$900 a month is only $5.1923 per hour, or $208 a week.
She should go get a job flipping burgers.
6 - STM
Or working in a decent bar or restaurant. She'd make nearly $200 in tips on a good night.
7 - Dave Nalle
Don, she's earning the equivalent of minimum wage at a skilled job where you also get tips? Plus the 'after taxes' thing is misleading, because earning that little she's not paying any taxes.
And my argument is that there aren't any people in her situation. She's a bogus example who is essentially working the equivalent of part time and earning enormously below her potential.
In the real world the vast majority of people earning in that range are either working a second job part time or are teenagers.
Dave
8 - bliffle
That waitress is purposely making too little money therefore she is a masochist therefore she is immoral therefore she DESERVES to suffer. QED.
9 - Arch Conservative
Don...
Healthcare is not a right, it is a commodity and should be treated as such in all but the most extreme cases.
10 - Clavos
"That waitress is purposely making too little money therefore she is a masochist therefore she is immoral therefore she DESERVES to suffer. QED."
As usual, in your eagerness to be sarcastic, you miss the point, bliffle.
The point being that we don't believe a hairdresser is making so little money working full time.
My wife has to pay $40 + tip for a haircut; not as much as John Edwards, but then I'm not an ambulance chaser, either.
11 - bliffle
That waitress is underreporting her income therefore she is a liar therefore she is immoral therefore she DESERVES to suffer. QED.
12 - Christopher Rose
you're fooling around, right, Bliffle?
13 - Clavos
"That waitress is underreporting her income therefore she is a liar therefore she is immoral therefore she DESERVES to suffer. QED."
If she is in fact underrreporting her income, I magree wqith you, bliffle (even though I know you're being "sarcastic" - or at least your poor imitation of sarcasm).
14 - Alec
Don - RE: ["I think you make a fair point that very few people choose to be uninsured. "]
That's all I was attempting to do with this second part.
The problem is that you do not make a case that everyone should have health coverage just because a small part of the population is not insured.
Another elephant in the room is that you do not in any way demonstrate that people who are uninsured do not get health care. It would be like saying "people who do not have auto insurance do not own and drive cars."
Dave Nalle -- RE: Don, she's earning the equivalent of minimum wage at a skilled job where you also get tips? Plus the 'after taxes' thing is misleading, because earning that little she's not paying any taxes.
Not true that this person is not paying any taxes. A single person without kids earning $900 a month after taxes could be earning at least $12,100 a year and would owe $368 in federal income taxes, and would have $925 in Social Security and Medicare taxes deducted from her wages.
Equally untrue is your assertion that there are not any people in this hairdresser's situation, or that the example is necessarily unrealistic.
15 - Dave Nalle
You have a point, Alec. There's no escaping from SS and Medicare.
And as I pointed out, there ARE people earning $900 a month. I just find the idea that they are hairdressers suspect. They're mostly teenagers and housewives working part time to supplement family income.
Dave
16 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
the religious nutbags who believe they can pray illness and injury away
Don, it's never smart to dismiss the value of prayer. You never know who it is who prays for you in the silence of their own home or the recesses of their heart. And prayer does have a positive effect on people who are sick. I'm speaking from personal experience.
Not all cures are come by western medicine. Don't set yourself on a pedestal of arrogance by assuming they do.
17 - Don Hall
Alec -
The problem is that you do not make a case that everyone should have health coverage just because a small part of the population is not insured.
I'm getting there. I'm stating my case one point at a time.
Part One - yup. Our current system is woefully inadequate and a large majority of Americans agree.
Part Two: while a large number of Americans are uninsured, virtually no one elects to be so.
I have five more parts coming to ultimately prove that healthcare is a human right, not a mere commodity to be profited from at the expense of those least able to afford it.
Ruvy -
All due respect, brother, but I can believe the sun is cotton candy and the earth is chocolate pudding and anyone with sense will tell me I'm nuttier than squirrel shit. I'm sure that prayer can have a positive effect on illness just as being surrounded by really funny people can have a positive affect on illness, but to disregard medical science on religious grounds is just superstitious nonsense.
18 - moonraven
And you, Don, are an offensive person--how is that better than someone who is superstitious?
Give me superstition over assholism every time....
19 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I said nothing about disregarding medical science. I did say that not all cures are come by western medicine and woe to the fool who deludes himself that they all do.
Prayer kept my mind clear when I could have surrendered to panic while I was having a heart attack and while I was being waiting for an ambulance to arrive.
Prayer has cured others where no solutions have worked at all. I know the people who have been cured by prayer AND treatment; albeit not "western medicine". And I live in a Jewish society - we have no Christian Scientists here.
20 - moonraven
I am not a CS, either--as I already indicated.
Radical Forgiveness, which I mentioned on another thread, is widely recommended to cancer patients in the US now. It is not prayer, but prayer could be included I suppose--and so far results show that folks who have done RF have a much better chance at surviving than those who don't--regardless of treatment modalities.
Positive thinking is always MUCH healthier than the kind of negative thinking shown by the writer of this piece.
21 - Don Hall
moonraven, Ruvy -
Wow. None of your kneejerk reactions have ANYTHING to do with the point of the article.
I take it back, OK. Praying ills away is a wonderful and powerful thing and I wish you both the best of luck with it. Positive thinking is great. Do some more of it. Feel better about things.
My poorly worded raging attack on the superstitious but sincere peoples of the world has been repented and I seek forgiveness for my horrifying and uncalled for attack.
22 - Arch Conservative
"I have five more parts coming to ultimately prove that healthcare is a human right, not a mere commodity to be profited from at the expense of those least able to afford it."
Receiving care that is necessary to save your life regardless of your ability to pay for it at the time should be a right in any society that wishes to call itself civilized.
Receiving healthcare whenever you want it for free at the expense of others with no intention of ever paying for it is not a right.
23 - xyla
I was captivated by the discussion on the hairdresser in Idaho who is under reporting her income, while no one mentioned the two school systems that are reducing their costs by hiring part-time teachers so they will not have to pay the going rate for full-time teachers to whom they would pay benefits as well as salary. By underpaying their teachers they make it impossible for the teachers to purchase health insurance.
More important, to my mine, is the inability of the purchasers to deduct their health insurance expense from their taxable income because of the 7.5% floor for medical expenses. This expense is 100% deductible to those who have insurance paid by the corporation as it is a deduction at the corporate level. To my mind it should also be deductible at the individual level.
24 - Clavos
Xyla (cool name!) notes:
"More important, to my mine, is the inability of the purchasers to deduct their health insurance expense from their taxable income because of the 7.5% floor for medical expenses. This expense is 100% deductible to those who have insurance paid by the corporation as it is a deduction at the corporate level. To my mind it should also be deductible at the individual level."
This is an EXCELLENT point; and one that could be realized relatively quickly and easily.
Write your Congressperson, everyone!
25 - moonraven
Don, YOU do not sound sincere at all--especially compared to those folks whose beliefs you chose to degrade--in a shocking display of infantile intolerance.