Americans Struggle for Affordable Health Insurance

By DerrikKyle on March 18, 2010, 10:31 am

While the media plays it up or down, the politicians of the 2008 Election Campaign all struggle to spin health insurance depending on their point of view. While there are many existing ideologies regarding health care, the fact remains that the struggle for affordable health insurance in America is real and getting worse every year.

The biggest misconception about health care is that the people without insurance are illegal immigrants, or are unemployed. This is not the case.

According to the National Health Care Coalition, nearly 80 percent of the uninsured in America are either Native American, or naturalized citizens, and of those, 8 out of 10 come from working class families. During 2006, over 90 percent of the population, nearly five million people were without any kind of health insurance.

America is a world leader so how can nothing be done to guarantee health care for working families? If they work enough to barely get by, then they usually make too much to qualify for state sponsored Medicaid. Staying at home and drawing welfare so that you can have health insurance makes little sense to most people, and budget cuts at the state level are making that prospect harder.

Young adults (between 18-24) probably do not give health care a second thought, as they are the population group most likely to be without any coverage. Surprisingly, families that earn over $50,000 per year are also not likely to have insurance, even when it is offered by their employer, because they just cannot afford the hefty premiums. If a family earning that kind of money cannot afford health insurance, how on earth could a family that earns half or less be expected to buy health insurance?

Being uninsured means that serious illnesses may go undiagnosed or untreated until it is too late. Even something as simple as the flu may cause complications and even death if left untreated, a common worry for those who cannot afford health care.

Many medical clinics ask that the uninsured pay their fees upfront to avoid the risk of unpaid bills piling up. Those who are unable to pay upfront must then live in sickness and agony, not getting time off work or any other kind of compensation. Most parents will not choose their own health care over putting food in their children’s mouths, and that is often what the choice comes down to. Do they take the money to go to the doctor, or do they go to the grocery store?

We all know what the answer will be.

An uninsured person is more likely to end up hospitalized for an avoidable condition, with the cost of that stay being around $3000. If that person had been seeing a doctor, such a condition could be caught, treated, or maintained. Hospitals treat patients without insurance to the tune of nearly $34million dollars every year, without compensation. That cost is added back to the general public by higher hospital bills, which then increases insurance rates, and you guessed it, forces more people to go without.

Affordable health insurance in America is something we all need to focus on and fix now, realistically and fairly. Health insurance should not be a luxury or an option for a select few. It should be mandatory and it should be affordable for all.

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