The American Health Dilemna

The American Health Dilemna

Everyone is aware that Americans are in dire straights in several areas with the economy presently being at its worst. One of the formidable problems is the average American’s lack of health insurance care. There are over 47 million Americans, with 9 million being children, are uninsured.

The astronomically-rising medical and insurance costs have hit employers every bit as hard as the individual American. The days where working Americans had fabulous employer-sponsored health coverage plans that were almost literally a blank check for their medical needs are long gone. Consequently, even with today’s employer-sponsored plans, insurance is becoming too costly for the low- or moderate-income American family.

Americans look to health insurance plans to do two things. One is to offer access to quality healthcare. The second is to make sure that healthcare is affordable. Nobody expects a health plan to be a blank check anymore; we know we have responsibility for our health care costs.

However, those costs have become quite costly and for many adults, too much. There’s the monthly cost of the health plan being deducted from the paycheck. Then, if there’s medical expenses, there’s co-pays and deductibles, which seem to increase every year. Consequently, it adds up an enormous bite out of the average American’s paycheck. And, when the paycheck is not big enough to begin with…

One of the depressing statistics is that approximately two-thirds of the Americans lacking health insurance have incomes below 200% of the federal poverty level, which was roughly about $41,000 for a family of four in 2006. The annual cost of employer-sponsored family coverage in 2007 was $12,106.

Let’s do some math. If one has a yearly income of $41,000, which is being reduced by $12,016 a year for a health plan. That means that over 3 out of 12 months one’s income is solely spent on health coverage.

And that’s just the cost of the health plan.

This equation doesn’t figure in deductibles, co-pays, or prescription costs. So, if two-thirds of the uninsured are 200% below the yearly income of $41,000, it becomes obvious why they cannot afford health insurance.

No one has any concrete answers as the bickering American politicians have shown. I don’t either, but I do wonder about a couple of things.

Why when having affordable health coverage is such a problem for over 47 million Americans, do we have so many in the health care industry that make millions and billions of dollars at America’s expense? I’m looking here at pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and health care providers and everything in between that have amassed such high profits.

Why are not many of these astronomical profits lowered so the average American can afford and the average employer can offer reasonable health care coverage? I was just wondering.

No related posts.