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High percentage of Americans lack health insurance
WASHINGTON - U.S. census figures made public on Tuesday show that there are a record number of people without health insurance in the country. Around 46.6 million Americans had no health insurance last year. The report added that lesser numbers received coverage from their employers.
15.9 percent of Americans were uninsured for some part of 2005 as compared to 45.3 million, or 15.6 percent, in 2004. Further the number of people offered coverage by their employers dipped to 59.5 percent from 59.8 percent in 2004. Overall the figures represent a 2.9 percent increase over 2004 data. This mean an additional 1.1 million citizens were without health coverage in 2005.
David S. Johnson, head of the Census bureau's Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division even private insurance numbers dropped. "That's an increase of people without health insurance coverage from 15.6 percent in 2004 to 15.9 percent in 2005. The number of people with privately purchased plans also decreased. The increase in the uninsured rate can be attributed to these two declines," he observed.
But Johnson was quick to point out that the percentage of people covered by government health insurance "remained unchanged at 27.3 percent." The number of children without health insurance rose from 10.8 percent in 2004 to 11.4 percent in 2005. 19 percent of children living in poverty had no insurance to speak of. The number of uninsured Hispanics rose from 13.5 million in 2004 to 14.1 million in 2005.
Reacting to these figures, Ed Howard, executive vice president of the Alliance for Health Reform, said urgent steps were needed to stop these numbers from swelling up. "Over the long term, this means some combination of private and public steps that are going to move us in the direction of broader coverage," he said. "And probably some combination of public and private steps will hold down costs."
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Written
by :
Archibald Freeman | Published on :
08:51:00
EST
Wed, 30 Aug 2006 |
Something
to say »
» Ev
Oh,yes I have something to say! If the government officials would close the border; and quit letting in others from different countries, maybe we would not be faced with such a problem. Maybe the solution is to get those of other countries to get on that idea that Bush Sr. imposed, "WELFARE TO WORK". Those poor people, those poor people, well what about these poor people in the US. If there was more investigations randomly done, we would not have such problems now would we. There was a recent clip I saw a week ago or two, about the government allowing illegals to come in the states, and paying them. I sure hope that is not going on. I love the first amendment. To each there own, and I am not trying to get people to side with me either; that is just my opinion. Thanks
Irritated US born Citizen
Commented by ( Ev ) on 19:43:01 EST Thu, 31 Aug 2006
» n/a
It just goes to show you...That Big Business is about the $$$, and the hell with people...The more they make, the more they want.
They say 46.6 million but its really 90 million +, about half of people are not even on the radar map.
The pay scales, to offset the medical bill are way out of wack, whom can afford Dentist bill, Doctors Bills, for min wage? please WHOM?
Bill Clinton had a triple by-pass, and I heard had a teams of Doctors working on him.
Do you think he paid the bill?
No Americans did.
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Maybe we should look at the swiss plan for medical coverage... pay a extra $300 dollars, above the already completely free medical coverage, and they will airlift from anywhere in the world to the hospital.
Commented by ( Rich ) on 10:26:11 EST Thu, 31 Aug 2006
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