47 Million Americans Are Uninsured
11.7 % Census data fuel attacks by Democrats
WASHINGTON - A record 47 million Americans did not have health insurance last year, while the percentage of children without insurance rose for a second consecutive year, according to US Census Bureau data released yesterday, leading Democrats to charge that the Bush administration has ignored a growing, more vulnerable population.
The census data found that, compared with 2005, the number of uninsured Americans rose 5 percent last year to 47 million, due in large part to cutbacks in employer-sponsored health coverage. It also found that 11.7 percent of US children under 18 lacked health insurance, compared with 10.9 percent in 2005.
An estimated 10.3 percent of children in Massachusetts went without health insurance from 2004 to 2006, slightly below the national average.
Nationally, the percentage of uninsured children had fallen over a five-year period beginning in 1999 because of the expansion of Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. Medicaid generally covers people living below the official income poverty line, set at $20,650 for a family of four.
But in the last two years, according to analysts, those two safety net programs could not keep up with the steady national decline of private, employer- provided healthcare plans. In 2000, nearly 66 percent of children nationwide were covered by those programs, compared with fewer than 60 percent last year, according to census figures.
The census data showed that 8.7 million American children were uninsured last year — 1 million more than in 2004, according to the data.
“For many years, Medicaid and SCHIP were growing at a fast enough rate to more than offset the falling numbers of people on employee-sponsored healthcare, but not in the last two years,” said Leighton Ku, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank based in Washington. “They failed to provide the same effectiveness in protecting children’s health insurance.”
The new data are expected to become part of an already contentious debate in Washington between the White House and the Democratic majority in Congress over legislation that calls for a significant increase in the SCHIP program. President Bush has threatened to veto any major expansion of the program, based on the principle that the federal government should not be funding insurance for those whose incomes could be considered middle-class.
Earlier this month, the Bush administration increased its efforts to rein in the SCHIP proposal to focus only on the neediest children. It sent a letter to state health authorities saying that states would have to demonstrate that 95 percent of the children from families earning less than 200 percent of the poverty level were served by Medicaid or SCHIP. Only then, the administration said, could states expand the program to families with incomes greater than 250 percent of the poverty level, or $51,625 for a family of four.
That directive from the administration could hurt many states, including Massachusetts, which under its healthcare reform program increased eligibility to families earning 300 percent of the poverty level, or $61,950 annually for a family of four. Federal officials approved the change last year, which allowed Massachusetts to enroll 14,000 more children.
Under the more generous House bill, the program would give states the flexibility to cover children from families who earn less than 400 percent of the poverty rate, which would be $82,600 for a family of four. In 2006, 91 percent of the children covered under SCHIP were from families with incomes of $41,300 for a family of four.
The Senate bill, by contrast, would cap eligibility of children whose families earn $61,950. Backers of both versions of the legislation estimate that their bills would cover an additional 3 million to 4 million children.
Democrats immediately cited the census study as evidence that more families need SCHIP.
“Today’s news serves as even more evidence that programs like SCHIP must be fully funded and extended to the growing numbers of uninsured Americans,” said Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts. “Healthcare costs are soaring, and our healthcare professionals are feeling incredible burdens.”
Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, who is running for president, likened the study to her attempts to reform healthcare during her husband’s first term.
“When I began the fight for universal coverage almost 15 years ago, there were 37 million people uninsured,” Clinton said in a statement yesterday. “It was an outrage then and with 10 million more people uninsured today, it is an even deeper outrage today. Yet, the uninsured have been invisible to this president.”
Despite the rise in the numbers of uninsured, the census figures found that the percentage of those classified as poor fell to 12.3 percent, from 12.6 percent in 2005, the first significant decline since 2001. Median household income rose nearly 1 percent to $48,200, still less than its peak in 1999.
© Copyright 2007 The Boston Globe
We are seeing the beginnings of failed capitalism and a government that fails to take care of its citizens.
When corporations started getting involved in medical insurance and institutions the price for medical care started to rise. Now we are at a point where medical coverage is no longer affordable. The market needs to meet the demand for affordable medical care without being regulated or crushed by a government provided health care system.
Will we rise to the occasion and do the right thing? I don’t think so. This mess will probably continue another 10 years before the corporate stranglehold on medical care weakens enough so our weak government can step in and make some changes.
Take the auto industry, I recently read that the European company that bought Chrysler has now out sourced the billions of dollars in healthcare pension benefits. The number of retired people with benefits out-number wage earners with scaled down benefits. The cost per car produced is $1,600 just for medical benefits. Anyway, they are dumping Chrysler.
This is just one example of how greed shaped America. Our subprime children will foot the bill.
Without health insurance, our children and theirs will probably die from cancer at a young age. Google children’s cancer and read what the Children’s cancer society is telling us. If the dramatic rise in children’s cancer and autism continues to cliomb, as it has in the past ten years, in another ten years both malady’s will be epiemic in scale.
Of course the continuing spread of DU has nothing to do with it. Even with trillios times trillions of nano-particles of DU now floating in the air in America, __ DU is absolutely harmlss. ____ Really? ___ Well read this website and the one which is then listed on the first screen.
http://www.gulfwarvets.com/du_howkilling.htm
Of course those lucky enough to be insured, will have the horror of having their children who do suffer from cancer treated with chemo and or drugs. Chemo of course is a long painful treatment that almost kills one to treat one.___ Not funny at all.
Insurance may be the problem, not the solution (affordable access to health care, single-payer, etc.)
Make the health profiteers pay!
Vote for http://ni4d.us/
I think I am going to write a book about American Oppression.
Good health, like clean air and water and nutritious food is a HUMAN RIGHT! Everyone needs these things just to live. Perhaps some of our friends from the Bible Belt can tell us what Jesus charged to cure the blind and heal the lame. Did he require the poor and helpless to carry insurance? I think not. How long must we put up with autocrats, monocrats and theocrats charging people for their human rights? What will it take to get the Corporations and their Lawmakers to stop feeding on We the People?
Perhaps these are things best handled by the United Nations. That rogue nation called the Unites States of America is clearly unable or unwilling to do right by it’s own people. Or any other people. We can really use blue helmeted peacekeepers in our own country.
What would happen if we actually had universal, world wide, health care? I’d vote for that but I doubt that the Corporations and Foreign Powers that control our elections would care.
Please note: all statistics provided by the Cheneybush administration are subject to deep, profound cynicism. At this point, it’s safe to assume all agencies and departments are staffed or overwatched by loyalbushies appointed by pathological liars. Poverty down a hair? Bullsh*t. 47 mil uninsured? Bet it’s more like 55 million. Medium income upticked? Kiss my ass.
Zero credibility means zero credibility. The MSM suddenly treats the above info as fact, in spite of the fact that it was provided by liars and traitors. Don’t fall into the trap - it’s way worse than we know or they would dare admit.
Why would anyone be surprised by this escalating tragedy?
I am very fortunate to be pretty healthy and I do live on an organic diet, grow most of my own foods. Not everyone can do that, nor do most Americans know what foods are cancer-inducing over the long term. Nutrition is like phys. ed class, most folks don’t really want to know or participate because it would mean that they have to pay attention to things around them instead of insulate and isolate themselves from the basic needs of their bodies.
We’re so screwed up about how to take care of ourselves that this seems to have happened out of our own complacency along with corporate greed.
Of course, having Bill Frist as the GOP Senate leader for all those years helped the medical industrial complex immensely…
I think the figure could be significantly higher but people without healthcare do not live as long as people with access to healthcare.
The sign of a fractured society.