20 million US workers lack health insurance -study

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N27662010.htm

WASHINGTON, April 27 (Reuters) - More than 20 million working Americans have no health insurance, with close to one in four employed people going without health care in some states, according to a report issued on Wednesday.

And 41 percent of these uninsured Americans report have trouble seeing a doctor when they need to, said the report from the non-profit Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This compared to 9 percent of insured adults.

Texas had the highest rate of uninsured working adults, at 27 percent, the group's survey found. In New Mexico and Louisiana, 23 percent of workers had no coverage. Minnesota had the lowest rate with 7 percent.

The survey found that 56 percent of adults without health care coverage did not have a personal doctor or health care provider, compared with 16 percent of people with health insurance.

[lebkuchen]

1. And they drive uninsured as well

The US is a pending social heart attack living on the edge.

[Wright Patman]

2. Is there a truly multicultural, polyglot

nation-state anywhere on earth that doesn't experience this?

And, no, I do not consider Canada to be comparable to the U.S. We have a veritable Third World population compared to our neighbors to the north or any in Europe.

There is a reason Texas is the leader in uninsured. It's not just because there is not enough socialism here, although certainly there is practically none compared to, say, Minnesota (with its relatively homogeneous population, I might add). There is an ethnic factor as well.

I am not saying any of this is right. It is just the reality on the ground.

[iverglas]

3. what on earth is this about?

And, no, I do not consider Canada to be comparable to the U.S. We have a veritable Third World population compared to our neighbors to the north or any in Europe.

I guess you're not aware that, for example, twice as large a proportion of the population of Canada was born outside the country as is the case in the US: almost 1 in 5 (20%) in Canada, almost 1 in 10 (10%) in the US.

Over half of the population of Toronto, for instance, is not of Anglo-Canadian ancestry.

Canada is rapidly becoming just about the most "multicultural, polyglot nation-state anywhere on earth", in point of fact, and urban Canada is already there.

There is a reason Texas is the leader in uninsured. ... There is an ethnic factor as well.

You've lost me. It might make sense to say that the "undocumented immigrant" factor has an effect: people without legal residence would be expected to have difficulty obtaining insurance coverage. But ethnicity itself is not relevant when there is universal coverage, which there is in those other "comparable" countries.

The reason for Canada's universal coverage (and ditto European countries) is not that it is ethnically homogeneous or has relatively fewer illegal residents. It is that a political choice was made to stop leaving people at the mercy of the health care and insurance industries when they need medical care.

The real difference between the US and what are generally regarded as "comparable" societies -- western Europe, Canada, Australia/New Zealand -- is economic, not ethnic.

The distribution of wealth and income is far more lopsided in the US than in any of those other countries, and wealth and income continue to become ever more concentrated in the hands of ever fewer people in the US.

The reasons for that difference are of course political and cultural. There is a culture of burden-sharing in these other countries, and a political will to ensure that no one bears a disproportionate share of burdens like ill health -- and an understanding that it is very much in the interests of the society as a whole to do this.

The ideology of American exceptionalism doesn't stand up to scrutiny here any more than it usually does.

[Wright Patman]

8. Exceptionalism

in this case is that the U.S. is "exceptionally" tough on those not fortunate enough to be born or to become wealthy.

We are moving from a "social safety net" to a "social surveillance net" post 9-11. And if you do not realize that the whole 9-11 "let's pin it on the Arabs even though it was a plot hatched within the PNAC bowels of the U.S. government" phenomenon did not lead to even more suspicion toward the "non-whites" in our midst, you just don't understand the latent xenophobia that is lurking just under the surface all the time in this country.

Texas now has a "non-white" population approaching 50 percent. In the country as a whole, it is probably around 30 percent. Let me be blunt here. I am not talking about where people are born. I am talking about ethnicity, color and race (and now even religion post 9-11). When you approach minority status yourself, all this talk of multiculturalism for the common good begins to break down, especially in a time such as this when all safety nets are being yanked away by the people at the top. It becomes every man and woman for him or herself. And one's "tribe" becomes one's priority.

Even if you say, well, the United States of America was founded upon allegiance to principles and not tribalism? That's an interesting concept to think about and discuss in political science classes. But guess what? The damned Constitution which enshrined those principles has been thrown out the window in recent years anyhow. Thus we are back to our tribe. I didn't say I agreed with it. I am just trying to get you to face the reality of the U.S.A. of 2005.

As I understand it, the growing non-native minority in Canada is not so much Hispanic as it is here, but Asian. That's a whole other kettle of fish. Asians in general are so successful financially that they do not even need safety nets. Their own families provide the net.

[iverglas]

10. bizarro world

What you say may go some way to explaining the prevalence of uninsured individuals/families among "ethnic" populations within the US -- obviously, at least some of those populations tend to be more economically disadvantaged overall, and thus less able to access health insurance (either through employer-supported plans or privately).

But it still has absolutely, utterly and completely nothing to do with any comparison between the US and other countries.

The fact that there are no uninsured populations in those other countries has nothing to do with their ethnic makeup. It has to do with the fact that health insurance is part of the publicly supported social safety net, not something that individuals must acquire in the marketplace if they wish to have it.

As I said, the difference is political and economic, not ethnic. The ethnic makeup of a society has precisely zero to do with whether a society adopts policies to share burdens among its members or imposes the costs of things like health care on individuals.


As I understand it, the growing non-native minority in Canada is not so much Hispanic as it is here, but Asian. That's a whole other kettle of fish. Asians in general are so successful financially that they do not even need safety nets. Their own families provide the net.

I live in a medium-sized city in Canada (about 1 million population for the metropolitan area). My neighbourhood is low-income and heavily "ethnic", mainly "Asian", including Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Indian and Pakistani (the groups that replaced the earlier Italian and Portuguese inhabitants). My immediate next-door and across-the-road neighbours are first-generation immigrants from China and their school-aged children.

The grandmother of one family lives in rent-to-income senior cits' housing, receives a Canadian old age security (public) pension because she has no other income or assets, and she is covered by the Ontario health care plan. My former tenants on the other side, a grandmother and her son and grandson, were all born in China. She was receiving a Canadian old age security pension and the middle-aged son was receiving municipal welfare -- his restaurant had gone bankrupt and he was dying of lung cancer -- and was of course receiving medical treatment under the public health plan.

There are poor immigrants in Canada, and some of them are actually Asian.

I am still failing to take a point in what you are saying, except that you are expressing weird stereotyped generalizations and using them as a basis for something they are unrelated to.

The decision to adopt a universal-coverage health care plan has nothing whatsoever to do with ethnicity.

The fact that, in a society without such a plan, there are more uninsured persons in a population that is disproportionately "ethnic", where the "ethnic" population is disproportionately poor, is just tautological.


Thus we are back to our tribe. I didn't say I agreed with it. I am just trying to get you to face the reality of the U.S.A. of 2005.

It may amaze you to know that many of us foreigners know a great deal about the reality of the USA, and sometimes even more than many people living in it.

What you're failing to do is connect that reality to your allegation that it is this non-comparability between the US and the rest of us industrialized/western-type nations that accounts for the abysmal health care coverage situation in the US or any part of it.

That is --

Is there a truly multicultural, polyglot nation-state anywhere on earth that doesn't experience this?

-- the answer is YES, there is. The large cities of Canada and of some European countries are no different from Texas in terms of ethnic diversity. And these countries do NOT "experience" this horrible state of affairs in terms of the population's access to health care, because we have decided not to let it happen.

Racism/bigotry in the US is NOT an adequate answer to the question of why the US does let it happen, even (i.e. even as distinct from the actual ethnic composition of the population) -- because the problem of people without health care is long-standing and affects not only the population that is the target of the racism/bigotry, but many members of the native-born, English-speaking population.

[Wright Patman]

12. I agree that universal health care

would have been a good thing to adopt in this country. But it should have been done back when there was the political will to do so.

LBJ established Medicare. That was also the moment in history to move to the Canadian-style approach. It didn't happen. And it certainly won't happen now.

BTW, my grandfather was born on a farm near Kitchener, Ontario. He married a Texan. In recent years, I have begun to lament that turn of events in my family tree. I love Canada a lot and have many relatives there to this day. The only drawback for a lifelong Texan is that it's too cold, just as Texas is too hot for most Canadians.

[iverglas]

14. places near Kitchener, Ontario

#2 -- the university where I did my undergrad. ;)

(Was your grandfather Menonnite, or maybe German, or just in coincidental geographic proximity?)

Texas is not only too hot, but too infested with fire ants. And for some reason, those fire ants seemed to find this Canadian especially tasty on her two sojourns in Texas, where she used to have out-laws.

Of course, it's also too infested with some other stuff, much of which was well represented by those lower-middle-class white out-laws of mine. On a guided tour of Plano, the favourite son, just recently out of university with an English degree and quite a high opinion of himself, directed my attention to "nnnn... Black Town". Yes, I do know a bit of Texas, even though some of it censored itself for my benefit.

The most interesting thing about my former co-vivant's family there, for me, was when his step-grandfather from California told me about being in Halifax when the Halifax Explosion of 1917 happened -- apparently he was stationed there with the US military; he was the only eye-witness to the event I ever met.

(http://www.cbc.ca/halifaxexplosion -- "the biggest man-made explosion the world had ever seen")

Me, I got mother's cousins in California and Michigan. Republicans every one.

[Wright Patman]

15. Grandfather Laschinger

was German, as you can probably guess from his name. Maybe some of his ancestors were into organized religion, but he most definitely was not. I think I heard his family might have attended an Episcopal church sporadically.

He was one of 15 children, only about half of whom survived to adulthood. I've only been to New Hamburg once. And if we went through Kitchener on the way there, I don't remember it. We were on a family vacation. The last place I recall visiting before we got to New Hamburg was Niagara Falls.

When I got older and began looking at maps, it amazed me how close all of the populated areas of Canada are to the U.S. border. Even where my grandfather grew up is only a couple of hours from Detroit. And one of his first jobs, as a sort of industrial espionage agent for Henry Ford, was in Detroit.

As to fire ants, I know they are around, but they've never bothered me for some reason. Plano really sucks, IMHO, but then I like trees. So it's a good thing I live in the pineywoods near Louisiana.

[Corgigal]

4. These stat's have been the same, for what

15 years or so? I bet its closer to 30-35 million. Easy.

[iverglas]

5. those are the "working Americans"

The total number of uninsured persons is indeed higher.

From the article:

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 45 million Americans, or about 15 percent of the population, have no health coverage, either through private insurance or government programs such as Medicare or Medicaid.

That's more than 1 in 7 individuals in the US. (I recall 40 million, rather than 45, being the figure often cited not too long ago.)

[Love Bug]

6. Well, Minnesota's rate is going to go up once our repuke governor

gets done cutting funds from the State HC program, Minnesota Care. They are making eligibility much harder, which means most adults who were eligible in the past will not be much longer.

[Ex_Catholic]

7. Ditto Massachusetts. Nazi Governor Romney

and cohorts have raped the state's health care budget.

[Vinca]

9. I doubt this takes into account the self-employed, We're being

screwed over so badly it's amazing anyone ever starts a new business.

[Mari333]

11. How much has been spent on this fake war so far?

www.costofwar.com
money down the toilet.

[lovuian]

13. Don't all people have the right to Healthcare?

Whats going on with this country???

I'm waiting for everything to totally collapse!!!

[salin]

16. Admin goal: More Uninsured!

Since January, through the president's "tax policy commission" they have been floating the meme that they need to simplify the tax code, by taking out "loopholes" - at the same time they also propose new tax cuts (esp getting rid of any estate tax - something that the cap has already been raised so high that very few people are affected - and only inheritance above that cap is taxable in the first place). One of the items that keeps being discussed - is getting rid of tax incentives to companies for providing health insurance to their employees.

Get it?

Insurance costs are rising. Companies are already scaling back on coverage. So what does bushco seem to be planning to do? Make it even more costly to companies to provide health insurance.

Now doesn't that make you feel warm and fuzzy all over? To make sure Bill and Melinda Gates can pass on their entire wealth tax free... we can ALL pay for our own health insurance. And having done that for a number of years, I can tell you that one only has to pay, for a single person, about $5,000 a year! Surely all of the tax cuts we have received will cover that for most working americans... oh, wait. They haven't.

This issue (the pending strategy for making room for the next tax cuts) is barely discussed - but should be. Let the emporor's lack of clothes begin to show.

[mbperrin]

17. And this doesn't include those with lousy plans!

I pay $276 a month for coverage for myself, and the exclusions and limits are so large that last year, when the blood work for my cholesterol and thyroid were done, that I owed $600+, and the insurance paid exactly $4.99!

This employee coverage is mandatory, else I wouldn't bother. (I work for a Texas school district of 28,000 enrollment).