--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > In a message dated 2/3/08 6:00:05 P.M. Central Standard Time, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > 7. From the 2004 Census, it appears that families with incomes between > $50,000 and $75,000 is the fastest growing group of uninsured. Also, from the > Kaiser 2005 employer health benefits survey, the percentage of employers offering > insurance has decreased every year for the past six years, almost entirely > in the small group market, with 40% of employers not offering any health > insurance. Interestingly, 98% of employers which have 200+ employees offer health > insurance. > > > > Her's one more number for you. About half of those 47 million uninsured > people can afford to buy their own health insurance but choose not to because > they know they can just show up at an emergency room and not be turned away. > Mitt Romney in the presidential debate from the Reagan Library. >
Not true. First, it is true that emergency rooms are required under federal law to treat emergencies to the point the person is stabilized. For example, they do not provide chemotherapy to cancer patients. They do not dispense drugs. Plus, the care is NOT free. If you can afford health insurance, you can bet that hospital emergency room is going to try to collect from you if you do not pay them. Hospitals frequently garnish people's wages for unpaid health care. I once had a person testify in a state legislative body about how she got ill and ended up in the hospital. She was 21 and without insurance. The bill went unpaid. The collection agency the hospital hired to get their money told her that is she wasn't going to pay her bills it would have been better if she died. I can give you many many more such stories. The second untruth is that there are no good figures on how many of the uninsured can actually afford insurance. The problem is that the insurance market is so fragmented that one person in one place might be able to afford insurance, but in another place cannot. Plus, if that person has preexisiting conditions, they very well may preclude that person from buying insurance at all, even if they can afford it. Take a family earning $50,000 a year. The employer drops health insurance. The family goes to buy on the individual market. Some family members get turned down. Dad has high cholesterol and high bp, both controlled with drugs. He still probably will get turned down. One of the kids has asthma--might get turned down. Mom had a hysterectomy a few years ago, she gets turned down. Maybe they can buy on a risk pool or get a HIPAA plan. Depending on the state, each family member might have to buy their own plan. The cost can be in the thousands a month. They seem like middle income people but they can't afford insurance. Be careful when you listen to the candidates talk about this stuff. I know the market and I know health insurance. They do not. They get stuff third and forth hand and put their own spin on what they learn and cherry pick facts. The health care problem in the US is a big, messy problem with many facets. Don't minimize it.
