Who's uninsured in 2007? It's more than just the poor (USA Today)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/insurance/2007-03-14-uninsured-usat_N.htm

Who's uninsured in 2007? It's more than just the poor

By Julie Appleby, USA TODAY
Susan Squire lost her health benefits in 2000 when her company downsized and she was laid off. A few years later, she had a heart attack — leaving her with a $92,000 hospital bill.

Dianne Stewart, who once had a six-figure income and health insurance benefits as an advertising saleswoman, now relies on the generosity of a group of doctors in her town near Charlotte for low-cost medical care.


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Joe Cesa, owner of a Philadelphia coffee shop, put a $3,000 emergency room bill on his credit card when he accidentally cut off the tip of his thumb. He can't afford insurance for himself or his employees.

While each of their backgrounds is different, all have one thing in common: Through choices, circumstance, bad luck — or a combination of all — they are among the more than 46 million people in the USA, nearly 16% of the population, who lack health insurance.


T.J. and Lela Robichaux of Shreveport, La., and son Trent, 8. For more than year Trent, who has autism, has been uninsured because the family earns too much to qualify for Medicaid.

For the first time in more than a decade, the debate over how to provide health care for the uninsured is moving back to center stage in Washington and many state capitals. After languishing as a major issue since President Clinton's health care plan failed in 1994, health reform is back on the agenda — from President Bush's State of the Union speech to stump speeches from presidential candidates. "It's amazing and extraordinary," says Drew Altman of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-partisan research group based in California. "This issue was nowhere as a top political priority four or five months ago. Now it's front and center again."

And it's not just Washington lawmakers: In recent weeks, business leaders, including those from Wal-Mart and the Business Roundtable, have teamed with their traditional opponents — labor unions — in calling for health system change. Several states, including Massachusetts and Vermont, have enacted laws aimed at covering the uninsured, while more than a dozen other states have some type of proposal under debate.

FULL story at link.


Joe Cesa, 55, at his Philadelphia coffee house. He can't afford health insurance, and he can't offer it to his employees, either.

[MountainLaurel]

1. Kick

Because if I didn't have COBRA from my old job, I would be uninsured. It would cost $950 a month to put me on the insurance plan at Mr. Laurel's job, which we can't afford. I work part-time in a professional position (no full time positions have come open in my area of expertise since we moved) and have no insurance through my job.