Who Are the Uninsured?
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There are currently 47,000,000 people living without health insurance in the United States of these, about 440,000 live in our state (440,000 is roughly the number of people living in Minneapolis and St. Cloud, combined). How one chooses to interpret these numbers depends on their political beliefs. Some believe that the high number of uninsured can be attributed to government interference with the health care industry. They believe that the whole health care industry (and presumably our health) would benefit if the entire health care system acted more like a business. Of course, this isn’t the first time these arguments have been used. In 1970 we were introduced to HMO’s, the prescribed solution to our health care needs. HMO’s were the free market solution. A system derived to make doctors and hospitals more efficient. 30 years after the conception of HMO’s we are once again in a “health care crisis”. The fact the HMO’s haven’t solved our problem is proof of their failure. If you don’t believe it look at the numbers at the top. We live in the strongest, richest and most democratic nation on this planet, and we cannot provide adequate care for one sixth of our citizens.
Now, some people will tell you that the uninsured have no one to blame but themselves. If they were just accountable and harder working they would be fine… In fact the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce endorses this belief with their statement “Health care is a benefit employers offer to attract and retain good employees, not a requirement.” Read that carefully, “good employees”. They don’t mention the 11,000,000 uninsured children.
Being a “good employee” is something that should be valued in our society. I, as well as the chamber of commerce, believe that personal accountability should be promoted. However, if were going to believe that health insurance is entirely dependant on one’s work ethic, then we should ensure that our system reflects that belief. So, the people who lack health insurance should guilty of something (in the words of the Chamber of Commerce, not a “good employee”) thus justifying their lack of insurance. Their children are apparently guilty of being born into a less privileged family. It’s unwise to settle for this type of rhetorical explanation to the “health care crisis”. Luckily, the U.S. Census Bureau did a report in 2006 called Income, Poverty and Health Insurance in the United States. The purpose of this report was to determine the economic condition, family size, age and racial background of these 47,000,000 people in question. The report helps to debunk the conservative perception of the uninsured.
22,010,000 (about half of the uninsured) worked forty hours a week throughout the year.
10,000,000 (about one-fifth of the uninsured) claimed themselves as the head of household
-23,778,000 (about half of the uninsured) earned between $25,000 and $75,000 annually
-29,500,000 (more than half of the uninsured) were between the ages of 24-64
To me there seems to be something fundamentally wrong in these statistics. The uninsured live above the poverty line but are not extremely rich. Many work forty hours a week. They are middle aged. Many have families. You see, in our country the extremely poor and the dependant are placed onto some type of state insurance program. In Minnesota, it’s called Minnesota CARE. So they do not make up a significant percentage of the uninsured. On the other hand, the rich have little problem paying their premiums. No, these 47,000,000 did not come from the extremely poor or the extremely rich.
I know some of these uninsured people. Many are struggling for their chance at the “American Dream”. They work a full time job, they rarely call in sick and they don’t get fired. These people are the “good employee’s” that the Chamber of Commerce would love to hire. The sad part is these same people choose between diabetic testing strips or rent. They let tooth infections become so severe that the Emergency Room cannot turn them back (which by the way, taxpayers pay for). I am in school with a friend who is unable to afford health insurance, because he had a brain tumor, and he is too “high risk”. Furthermore, I dare anyone to go to my friend and tell him that he somehow deserves not to be insured. That if he just worked a little harder, he would no longer have to fear economic ruin from a medical emergency. Tell them there is a legitimate reason their children cannot afford their prescriptions. That them their situation is somehow a reflection of justice. I wouldn’t dare say something that offensive, but the Chamber of Commerce would. Remember? “Health care is a benefit employers offer to attract and retain good employees, not a requirement.”
Keep in mind that health care is a needed service in our society, therefore is cannot be a “benefit”. Also keep in mind that the problem of the uninsured in this country is more complex than simple laziness. Nearly half of the uninsured are currently employed full time, and the other fifth are their children. That means that two-thirds of the uninsured in the country, probably cannot be blamed for the situation. It’s time that we start objectively looking at the realities of the “health care crisis” and enact legislation that targets the root of the problem. We should probably start with the massive Insurance and Pharmaceutical companies that made record profits of the premiums of hard working Americans. We should at least stop exclusively blaming those without insurance. To continue to do so is a display of ignorance.
By Chris Gray
Works Cited
Minnesota Chamber of Commerce
http://www.mnchamber.com/priorities/healthcare-regulations-2008.cfm
U.S. Census Bureau
www.censusbureau.biz/hhes/www/hlthins/hlthin05.html