by arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,
October 22, 2004
The U.S. Census Bureau released a report at the end of august finding that 45 million americans do not have health insurance. according to the report, the number of uninsured americans grew by 1.4 million in 2003 from the 2002 figure.In their reportage of the Census Bureau's findings, most of the mainline media simply cite the 45 million without further comment as to who these people are. The unquestioning media seems prepared to believe that every one of these 45 million is a person who simply cannot afford to purchase insurance
although many in the U.S. cannot afford to pay for medical coverage, a lack of money is not the only reason why some people are not insured. as much as the elite media would like to believe that, many americans remain uninsured by choice. The National Center for Policy analysis found that the number of americans earning over $50,000 a year account for 90 percent of the increase in the numbers of uninsured during the past 10 years. Of this group, almost two-thirds had family incomes in excess of $75,000.
There are several reasons why people do not have health insurance for reasons other than they simply cannot afford to purchase it. If someone leaves a job on Friday and starts a new one on Monday they wind up with no employer-covered health insurance over the weekend and are counted as being uninsured for the entire year.
There are also the very rich. although these people represent a very small fraction of the population, they are the ones that don't have to worry about insurance because they can easily pay for their anticipated medical or hospital needs.
another group that does not have insurance is made up of people who have discretionary, albeit limited, income. They could afford to purchase insurance but make a conscious decision to spend that money on other items.
Finally there are those who can either afford to either purchase insurance or qualify for government coverage through programs such as Medicare or Medicaid but simply never take the time or put in the effort to become insured. They are joined by people who can afford and want insurance but never find the time to get some.
The media, when they are making the point that americans cannot “afford” health insurance should be honest enough to find out exactly how many people are in this group (some say the number is approximately 2 million people). To simply state that 45 million americans do not have health insurance, implying that all of them lack it because they cannot afford it, it wrong and misleading.