Health Insurance Priced Out Of Reach For Most

The lack of adequate health insurance has been a real problem in this country for a long time now. The Census Bureau tells us that 46.6 million people do not have any kind of health insurance in the United States. That is about 16% of our population. The embarrassing part of this whole thing is that we are the ONLY industrialized nation that does not cover all of its citizens with health insurance.

The reason this country does not have universal health insurance is because the Republicans do not want it. They and their wealthy buddies have insurance. They seem to believe that if you can't buy insurance, then you don't deserve it. They make fun of the idea that health coverage should be a right. They don't care that while the rich are getting medical care, the poor are dying for lack of it. After all, if you needed insurance that badly, you should buy it, they tell us.

But it's not that simple. The Commonwealth Fund has issued a new report on health insurance. They tell us that each year more employers stop covering their employees health insurance needs. The reason is because of the runaway costs of the insurance. The report found that the fastest growing segment of the uninsured are the people with full-time jobs. The employers that still cover their employees, do so with much higher deductibles, creating a huge medical debt for many workers. Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, said, "People are being squeezed as employer coverage is either not available or contains very high out-of-pocket costs. The alternative of last resort - to seek individual health insurance - is not a safe haven."

Many people each year try to buy their own health insurance, but 9 out of 10 fail. Of those who try to buy their own insurance, 89% fail. 60% of those did not buy the insurance because it was too expensive. The rest could not buy because of a current medical condition. So we see that for people who don't have insurance, the reason is not that they don't want to buy it. They simply cannot afford it. Those who can afford it get turned down by the insurance companies because they have a medical problem already. The insurance companies only want to cover healthy people.

It should be obvious to anyone by now, that we will never have full coverage of all our citizens until the government steps in and does it. The insurance companies will not do it. They're not in business to protect America's health. They're in business to get rich [and they are]. The employers can't do it for financial reasons, especially the smaller businesses. In 2000, 69% of employers provided coverage for their employees. By 2005, the figure had fallen to 60%.

It is time for government action on this issue. But before that action can be taken, one other thing must be done. The Republicans must be voted out of office.