smueller

Nothing is counted (or subtracted) twice.
Uninsured non-citizens = 8.9 million.
Uninsured $50k-$75k/yr = 6.9 million.
Uninsured >$75k/yr = 7.2 million.
Total = 23 million.

Simple arithmetic. No voodoo necessary.

smueller

Robjame - I forgot to thank you for the reference.

According the Census Bureau report, "non-citizen" does not simply imply foreign born. The exact description is "Not a citizen" and this number is 8.9 million, just as I stated. There is a separate category for naturalized foreign born and that number is 2.2 million uninsured.

An explanation that 23 million (out of 43.5 million) uninsured are not pitiful victims of tragic circumstances beyond their control should received as welcome news, yet you're response is anger. Seems odd.

sjj

smueller - I think you're overinterpreting your results. Minor children of illegal immigrants deserve medical care on compasionate grounds, in my opinion, and many families in the $40,000 - $50,000 income range need help because of severe medical problems. Even if you're right and there are only 20 million people in the US who deserve medical insurance, using your criteria, I think that's 20 million too many. I feel that medical care is a basic human right, and you don't. We're not going to change each other's minds.

Padraig

smueller wrote: "Nothing is counted (or subtracted) twice.
Uninsured non-citizens = 8.9 million.
Uninsured $50k-$75k/yr = 6.9 million.
Uninsured >$75k/yr = 7.2 million.
Total = 23 million."

Is there some law that precludes non-citizens from earning over $50k/yr?

robjame

smueller - (1) as sjj said. You counted some numbers twice. Because a person is in one category, that does not preclude them from being in another. eg. a female can also be Hispanic. You cannot add them together.

(2) You are cherry picking. You extrapolate the number of uninsured in direct proportion to the increase in population. You completely ignored:
<<The share of the population without
health insurance rose in 2002, the
second consecutive annual increase.
An estimated 15.2 percent of the population or 43.6 million people were
without health insurance coverage
during the entire year in 2002, up
from 14.6 percent in 2001, an
increase of 2.4 million people>>

If you ignore the increase and extrapolate at the 2.4 million rate, you get +12 million or 55.6 million uninsured in 2007.

(3) <<An explanation that 23 million (out of 43.5 million) uninsured are not pitiful victims of tragic circumstances beyond their control should received as welcome news>>
hmmm.

ira

Hi sm,

>..8.9 million of the uninsured in 2002 were non-citizens, presumably many were, and likely still are, here illegally.

That might be true.

"The foreign born or immigrant population stood at over 31 million in the 2000 Census, and the total has grown to 36 million by the end of 2005".

About 1/3 of the immigrant population are illegal. Thus, you could presume that 1/3 of the non-citizens without insurance were illegal

>Slightly more than 14 million of the uninsured are from families with household incomes of at least $50,000 per year.<

>...people that appear to be uninsured as a consequence of choice.
Either the choice to enter a country illegally where they will be ineligible for healthcare ...<

I don't think that you can lump things together so easily.

First, I don't think that insurers ask if you are a legal immigrant. Second, even if you are an illegal immigrant you get the same care under Medicaid that you would get if you are legal.

In addition, all those rich folks, by opting out of the insurance pool only raise the rates for the rest of us.

Also, if they do have a major accident or illness and end up being pauperized, we have to pay their health costs anyway.

Wouldn't one advantage of a national health plan be that the rich people would have to contribute to their own health care?

>An explanation that 23 million (out of 43.5 million) uninsured are not pitiful victims of tragic circumstances beyond their control should received as welcome news,<

That still leaves 20 M uninsured. Since we have to pay for whatever care they do eventually require, wouldn't it be cheaper to put them into universal coverage and take care of small problems before they become big problems?

Sarvowinner

Ira

SO THAT's why you have a light bulb - you clearly illuminate the solutions.

smueller

My question for all those that were upset by my interpretation of the US Census Bureau statistics is simple. Do those that can afford health insurance and yet don't purchase it because they are taking a (perhaps foolish) "calculated" risk deserve the same degree of sympathy (and public policy concern) as those for whom health coverage is truly out of their grasp?

Robjame - If you are going to extrapolate the total number of uninsured in 2002 to obtain a 2007 estimate, consistency demands that you also extrapolate the numbers of individuals that are uninsured because of the reasons I specified. It is misleading to project the baseline without projecting the components that comprise that baseline. This will inflate the numbers of those that are more deserving of our sympathy.

And, yes, it is possible that some uninsured non-citizens (the majority of whom, I submit, are probably here illegally) make more than $50k per year, but I suspect that number is exceedingly small. You are correct, however, that this very small number would be "counted twice" by my methodology, but I would be surprised if it would change the result by more than a hundred thousand. If you have a quantitative argument suggesting that the number of uninsured non-citizens earning more than $50,000/yr is in the several million range, I would like to hear it.

Also, your extrapolated estimate of 57 million uninsured exceeds the generally accepted figure of 47 million. The US unemployment rate was at a low spot in 2002, and this may invalidate any extrapolation.

sjj - I agree that children should be regarded differently. While I have little sympathy for the family with a household income of $75,000/yr that incurs financial hardship because they took a calculated gamble not to purchase health insurance and lost, I do feel sympathy toward the children that are caught in the middle. Uninsured children are more likely to suffer from a lack of preventive care.

And, you're right that we probably won't change one another's minds (there is such a thing as irreduciable disagreement), but we can still learn from each other. There is a lot of middle ground on an issue this complex.

audere_est_facere

Are there really lots of Americans earning less than $50k?

No wonder you complain about the cost of London.

Sorry for the side-track.

ira

Hi sm,

>Do those that can afford health insurance and yet don't purchase it because they are taking a (perhaps foolish) "calculated" risk deserve the same degree of sympathy (and public policy concern) as those for whom health coverage is truly out of their grasp?<

It has nothing to do with sympathy.

It is not unlike people who drive motorcycles without helmets. We require them to wear helmets (in some states) because we don't want to pay the extra costs if they are n an accident and suffer brain injury.

As I noted above, people who make the decision not to have health insurance are only raising the costs for the rest of us.

In a similar manner, those who are uninsured because they can't afford it are also raising the costs for the rest of us.

Our present system of HMOs, PPOs, POS, etc and Medicaid doesn't provide better healthcare, and is no less expensive, than a universal system.

For those that argue that freedom to choose will be affected, I suggest that you do what is done in Europe, pay for private insurance.

BTW, how many people who are enrolled in HMOs have freedom to choose?

jsmith

The Wall Street Journal published a piece, "Cost Control for Dummies", on the opinion page today.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/ysbqc8

danon

Are there poor Americans ?
Have you seen pictures of New Orleans after the flood?

Many ( but not all) poor are Hispanics and African Americans ; I fear that the reason so many Americans do not support paying into a health care system might be more than just the usual " government run programs are inefficient ..blabla...

bobludlow

You should recheck your math, PalenQ - life expectancy rates have much more to do with diet, lifestyle, and ethnicity than with health care systems. We exercise less and eat more than do citizens of other countries. American hospitals do a better job than any other country at delivering pre-term babies - which hurts the life expectancy math because severely pre-term babies often die in the first few days or weeks. In fact, that issue is magnified further because many foreign countries (France, for example) don't count babies in their life expectancy calculation until they have survived the first few days.

Instead of using raw life expectancy from birth, you should take a look at the out-years of a life table. Here's an example drawn from America's CDC and Great Britain's GAD: an 80-year-old American man has a 6.9% chance of dying before he turns 81. In the UK he would have 7.7% chance of dying. For 80-year-old women an American has a 4.8% chance of dying compared to a Brit's 5.2% chance of death. Does than mean that the US health care system is better than the UK system? No (though personally I do believe that America's more market-based system is superior). But it does demonstrate that a simple "life expectancy from birth" comparison has major faults.

PalenQ

Fox Noise's Hannity and Homely had Mitt Romney on last night and he claims that the Massachusetts plan where everyone in the state is covered by a private plan, with the poorest being subsidized or paid for 100%

resulted in the state government paying quite a bit less to the insurers than it previously had paid to hospitals and ERs to care for the poor.

So universal health care, by whichever means may be cheaper than the present system.

Mitt it might be added was opposed to giving the poorest a free ride and insists than even those who can't afford should have to pay something.

Nevertheless he signed the bill with the total subsidy of the poorest in it.

basingstoke2

Ira, your points are exactly right. Also as far as the fear of government run health care, the US already has a massive single payer system. It is the military medicine system that serves our million and half active duty service men and women and their dependents, not to mention a good number of military retirees. It is a system that I have both worked in and used for many years and it works! The standard of care is high reflecting the excellence and dedication of staff. I compare the care given to my son who was diagnosed with lymphoma while in high school to that of one of his classmates, also diagnosed with cancer but of a different kind. My son's treatment not only was as good as could be found anywhere, but probably better. If his doctors recommended something, it was done. His classmate with private insurance had a much different experience. His parents had to constantly do battle with the insurers to carry out the doctor's recommendations. When you have a child with cancer, the last thing you need is to hassle with insurers to get the tests and treatment that the medical professionals recommend. BTW, no one has ever accused the US military of being a left wing organization.

PalenQ

<Also as far as the fear of government run health care, the US already has a massive single payer system.>

and Congress has such a system for itself - perhaps not massive but socialized from the public trough i believe.

socialized medicine no doubt has its problems but seems the better alternative to the cesspool system we have now.

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

altamiro

>Massachusetts plan where everyone in the state is covered by a private plan, with the poorest being subsidized or paid for 100%

Sounds pretty much like the Swiss system.

PalenQ

And one reason perhaps medical care is so expensive is gouging by doctors and medical care providers:

my Dad took 2 weeks to die in hospital and we were there constantly yet did not recognize the many physician names who claimed to have looked at him for about $100 a crack - peeking in perhaps.

Thank god he had a cadillac of insurance.

Or myself, after severing my quad tendon in ER the bill later said i was charged $18 for a single Ibuprofen pill they gave me

Heck at Wal Mart i could buy several hundred for that price.

And it seems those who oppose national health care are those who have great insurance plans now.

I pay $3,000 a year for coverage with absurdly high deductibles - how can a truly poor person afford that?

Padraig

PalenQ wrote: "I pay $3,000 a year for coverage with absurdly high deductibles - how can a truly poor person afford that?"

Read back through the thread for the answer: by forgoing personal transport; by not drinking soda; by staying away from fast-food joints; by not having television. Best solution of all: by ceasing to be poor.

You can be confident that the truly poor are unaware of your concern, because they are not on this forum researching their next foreign holiday.

basingstoke2

<but socialized from the public trough>
You better believe that the value of my health care benefit was added in when DOD calculated my overall compensation.