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One-third of young adults face medical bill troubles, debt
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(CBS News) Almost 40 percent of young adults between the ages of 19 and 29 did not have health insurance at some point in 2011, according to a new report from the Commonwealth Fund.
The report also found that more than one-third (36 percent) of young adults had medical bill problems or were currently paying off medical debt. Of those individuals, 43 percent faced serious financial troubles, 32 percent couldn't make their student loans or tuition payments, 31 percent put off education or career plans, and 28 percent couldn't afford essentials such as food, heat or rent because of medical bills.
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For the survey, researchers from the Commonwealth Fund polled 1,863 people, a sample that's representative of 46.6 million U.S. adults between 19 and 29. The researchers also reported that in 2011, 13.7 million young adults between ages 19 and 25 stayed on or joined their parents' health plans, including 6.6 million of which who would not have been able to without the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Before the act went into effect in September 2010, children could only stay on their parents' insurance until they were 19, or until the age of 22 if the children were full-time college students.
"While the Affordable Care Act has already provided a new source of coverage for millions of young adults at risk of being uninsured, more help is needed for those left behind," Commonwealth Fund vice president Sara Collins, lead author of the report, said in a written statement. "The law's major insurance provisions slated for 2014, including expanded Medicaid and subsidized private plans through state insurance exchanges, will provide nearly all young adults across the income spectrum with affordable and comprehensive health plans."
Those who were uninsured or had a gap in coverage were at greatest risk: 51 percent of young adults who were uninsured when surveyed and nearly half with a gap in coverage during the year had a medical bill problem or medical debt. The costs weren't small either. One-quarter of young adults who were paying off medical debt owed $4,000 or more, and 15 percent reported $8,000 or more in debt. Among those with a gap in coverage during the year who were paying off debt, 31 percent had $4,000 or more of medical debt, 21 percent had $8,000 or more and 11 percent had $10,000 or more.
The survey also reflected how health insurance can help these young adults. Eighty-five percent of young adults who were insured during the survey had a regular doctor or place of care, while only 38 percent of those without insurance accessed such care. Rates of preventive care, such as weight and blood pressure checks, were also lower for those with any coverage gaps or who were uninsured. Rates for dental care were similar.
"There's no question that young people have cut back on high-value screenings, doctor visits and therapies," Dr. Mark Fendrick, director of the University of Michigan Center for Value-Based Insurance Design, told CNN. "You twist your knee playing soccer and you go to get an MRI. But if the doctor says you have to pay 50 percent of the cost, you're going to be less likely to go through with it," he said.
For more, check out the complete Commonwealth Fund Health Insurance Tracking Survey of Young Adults.
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Your proposition falls apart on its own definition of personal liberty-- we are a tightly interdependent society, and matters that affect you and others cannot be neatly or rationally separated. From education to healthcare, such programs were created by general need and popular demand for the common good-- the "general welfare" mentioned in the preamble to the constitution.
In a democracy, such governmental programs directly represent the wish of the American people. They are also widely recognized as basic to a civilized society by most developed nations.
But a (human) right? You may not prefer to be part of that, but you forfeit a huge amount of collective wealths American society has developed in the last 236 years, the definition of human rights has taken on new dimensions because Americans have demanded change. But the concept of human rights has been with us as a society from the beginning, and many historians would argue it is the very foundation of this country.
since American leaders began to use the term in the American Revolution. related to making both youth and the elder years a period
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WOULD DEFEND THE INDEFENSIBLE
Audemus asks, "What is wrong with our healthcare system? Quick-- someone tell me what to believe..."
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Quick-- look for any good reason millions of American citizens should live in disease and poor health. That is a gathering disaster that will overtake all of us, no matter which rich subdivision (with armed guards) we call home.
As Europeans learned in the Black Death plagues of the 1300's, no man is an island.
Likewise, we desperately need to reform our healthcare system because "our" healthcare system is not ours-- it belongs to the private for-profit enterprises whose primary incentive remains making the maximum amount of money possible, at our increasing expense. As middlemen in America's complex, hybrid system of medical care providers, private healthcare insurers routinely increase the cost we pay for medical treatment.
In France, by comparison, the lower one-third of the population gets medical care equal or superior to the care given the upper one-third of our society. The French pay more in taxes, but want very much to keep their system. In contrast, Americans are not sure they want to pay what our private system costs, and spend, on average, 2.5 times more for similar medical treatment.
The extra cost of American healthcare comes from gross inefficiency of a system created for greatest profit. And since what the private insurers pay out for patient care comes from what they hoped to rake in as profit-- guess who often ends up shortchanged? Patient care suffers, all other factors equal, because the private insurers have wealthy investors they must keep happy. Which has nothing to do with the declared mission to provide quality health care.
The healthcare problem contributes mightily to our national debt-- something we do own. But the fingerprints of the profit motive are all over that debt, and explain a great deal of its expansion. Medical coverage costs continue to soar because the profit motive knows no rational restraint. Even private healthcare providers and insurers have admitted as much, and recognize the problem.
By comparison, the unique system of medical providers (both public and private)used by the non-profit Medicare program has an overhead of around three to five percent (higher cost where private firms are involved in services delivery). Medicare is designed to offer the basics of sound medical care to those who must depend on it. Medicare meets a need first recognized by FDR-- that the elderly in our country should live out their years in dignity and basic good health.
Beyond Medicare, putting health and the common welfare first, it is impossible to justify any system that places the profit of a few ahead of the needs of the rest of society. Every general gain in security, in health and wealth is profit for everybody.
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You missed the point because you ignored the elephant in the room-- ie. how can all Americans secure healthcare coverage affordably?
We need to provide younger Americans a system they can use from the beginning, which also works for them throughout their lives.
Private healthcare providers and insurers admit the private insurance system cannot serve both its profit motives and its patient clientele simultaneously. And so it has offered declining coverage, but at greater cost.
And this is a "choice-based" healthcare system? We pay our medical insurance by necessity, with no alternatives.
And since private insurers hate true competition, they have lobbied their favorite legislators to oppose those alternatives.