There Are Still Too Many Uninsured Citizens In The U.S.

The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) has been good for this country. It has fixed some of the problems with our broken health care system. Insurance companies can no longer cut off payments for an ill person because they think it costs too much. They can no longer change exorbitant rates or deny coverage for pre-existing medical conditions. They can no longer charge women more for insurance than they charge men. They must allow parents to keep children on their insurance up to age 26. They must use at least 80% of the premium payments they receive for actual medical expenses. They must offer a certain amount of coverage in their policies. And insurance premium prices have been held down because they must compete with other companies in state or federal insurance exchanges.

Those are all good things, and they are supported by a substantial majority of Americans. The only part of Obamacare that the public doesn't like is the requirement to buy insurance or pay a fine. And people are starting to come around on that -- realizing that it only affects a tiny portion of the population (around 6%), and that without it the insurance companies would not be able to afford the reforms listed in the above paragraph.

In addition, anyone honest person has to admit that Obamacare has significantly reduced the percentage of people who have no health insurance. It has gone from a national percentage of about 17.3% in 2013 to a level of 11.7% in 2015 -- and if all states had accepted the Medicaid expansion proposed by Obamacare, the percentage would be much lower than that.

The chart below shows the current percentage of uninsured citizens in each state. My own state (Texas) still leads the nation in the number and percentage (20.8%) of uninsured citizens. It's shameful that more than 1 out of every 5 people in Texas have no health insurance (which means they probably also have no access to life-saving preventative care). But Texas is not alone. Many other states, especially those who failed to expand Medicaid, have embarrassing percentages of people with no heal insurance.

A good portion of this could be cured by all states expanding Medicaid. But that would not completely eliminate the problem. The sad fact is that Obamacare was not designed to cover all American citizens with insurance. It should have. Other nations (including other free enterprise democracies) cover all of their citizens, and they spend less than the United States does per patient for that health care for all.

There is no real excuse for the richest nation in the world to not provide health insurance (or health care) for all its citizens. Regardless of what the right-wing says, decent health care should be a right of all citizens (and not just those who can afford to buy it).

Obamacare fixed some of what was broken in our health care system. It is now time to go further, and completely fix the system. And I am convinced that the best way to do that is to go to a government-run, single-payer health insurance system -- something like Medicare for every single American citizen (regardless of age or income). Such a system would not just cover all citizens, but it would save money also (by taking the profit out of the system of insurance, and streamline (and simplify) the claims procedure for doctors and hospitals. It would also have the side benefit of removing the cost of insurance from corporations -- allowing them to easier pay their fair share of taxes (something that other countries already do).

A single-payer, government-run health insurance system would benefit everyone -- both citizens and businesses. It is an idea whose time has come.

These charts were made from information in a new Gallup Poll. It was done between January 2nd and June 30th of a random national sample of 88,667 adults, and has a margin of error of 1 or 2 points for most states. The margin of error climbs to 4 points for the states with the least population.