The American Public on Health Care-The Missing Perspective - (Page 43)

Figure AA. Main Reason for Not Having Health Insurance Cannot afford it Not employed Employer does not offer it In between jobs Do not think I need it /do not want it Lost coverage Pre-existing condition Other 0 57% 14% 9% 7% 5% 3% 2% 2% 20 40 60 80 100 But it isn’t simply a problem for the uninsured. Across the country, Americans understand that this critical issue affects every one of us, regardless of income or health insurance status. As one woman in Detroit puts it, “We can’t afford not to cover everyone… If we think we’re not paying for it now, we are. We’re paying for it in the most inefficient, expensive way possible. People who don’t have coverage don’t get care early, they don’t go to the doctor… so the diabetes gets worse, the heart disease gets worse, they’re served in the emergency room.” A San Franciscan agrees: “Covering the six million [Californians] who are uninsured will actually bring costs down for all of us. This is true because six million now go to the worst possible place for the highest possible care, which is the emergency room. So it drives up your premium costs, my premium costs, and it crowds and closes our emergency rooms. If you believe that, then you see we have a shared interest in all of us having insurance.” There is a growing recognition that, in addition to driving up overall costs, the high number of uninsured degrades the system’s ability to function. “I think that the uninsured is a huge problem,” says the CEO of one of South Florida’s largest insurers, “whether it’s the 47 million across the country or the 600,000 that we have here in south Florida in the Miami-Dade area. It’s a major problem for us, it’s a problem not only for us as a community but it’s a problem for the health insurance industry as well because when you have that many people that don’t have insurance, the system doesn’t work well.” The impact on the health care system is profound. A study by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation has estimated that health care spending for the uninsured in 2008 will total $86 billion. The uninsured will pay $30 billion out of their own pockets, leaving the balance of “uncompensated care” costs divided among hospitals, community health centers, physicians.and government. The study finds that the government ends up picking up $43 billion of the $56 billion in uncompensated costs. In short, this cost-shifting illustrates the problem of having millions of uninsured: we all get stuck with the bill. 31 Kaiser Family Foundation, “The Uninsured: A Primer,” p. 1, January 2006 Accessed at: http://www.kff.org/ uninsured/upload/7451.pdf, 32 Accessed at: http://www.rwjf.org/pr/product.jsp?id=32191 33 Kaiser 2006, p. 7 43 http://www.kff.org/ http://www.rwjf.org/pr/product.jsp?id=32191

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