How Uninsured Americans Affect Your Care

News and Opinion for Democrats Against Bush -- Part II

How Uninsured Americans Affect Your Care

"The Institute of Medicine estimates that $65 billion to $130 billion is lost every year in wages and benefits because of the uninsured, but if insurance was provided to the estimated 46 million Americans who do not have it, it would cost $39 billion-$69 billion a year." ---ABC News

Christian Science Monitor
from the October 28, 2003 edition -

Even biggest firms now cut health insurance

Some 32 percent of employees without health benefits work for large companies, up from 25 percent in 1987.
By Alexandra Marks

Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

The complete article is currently (3/29/04) available on the Monitor's website at-- http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1028/p01s02-usec.html

Excerpt--

NEW YORK - The foundations of America's private health-insurance market appear to be slowly crumbling - not just for the poor, but also for working Americans accustomed to middle-class lifestyles.

Large employers, which since World War II have provided comprehensive health insurance to most American workers, are scaling back coverage. In a few cases, they're doing away with it altogether. ...

In the 1960s, more than 80 percent of US workers had health insurance through their employers. Today, in the face of skyrocketing premiums, that's down to 62 percent. ...

____________________________________________

ABCNEWS.com

Spreading the Pain:

How Uninsured Americans

Affect Your Care

ABCNEWS.com

The complete article is currently (3/29/04)

available on the ABC News website at--

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/DrJohnson/GMA031024UninsuredAmericans-1.html

[found through a Google search by article title on the date above]

Excerpt--

Oct. 24— ... Millions of uninsured Americans wind up seeking treatment in our over-stressed, under-staffed emergency rooms, where, by law, the uninsured must get treated. Ultimately, everyone who uses the health care system feels the consequences. ...

"It costs dramatically more to treat someone in this way," ABCNEWS' Medical Editor Tim Johnson said. "For instance, someone with insurance who has a cold can go see their doctor and get early treatment. Someone without insurance has to wait until he has pneumonia before he gets treatment. That can cost thousands of dollars to treat." ...

"Entire communities are being destabilized. Their health care systems, their hospitals, their doctors' practices are being affected by the cost of providing a lot of care that doesn't get compensated due to un-insurance," Kellerman said. ...

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