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Facts |
The Problem: Big Insurance
Simply put, our health care system is broken and every day
it gets worse. We spend more than any other nation, but
get less. Some of the problems are due to our aging population
and the rise of expensive new treatments, but most of
the blame can be pinned squarely on health insurance
corporations.
Health insurers encumber our health care system with a
Byzantine bureaucracy that is most efficient at confusing
consumers, hassling doctors, and driving up costs. Insurers
have done little to improve customer satisfaction, healthcare
accessibility, or the overall quality of our medical system;
these things just aren't profitable.
Below are statistics that show the depth of the problem. |
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The Uninsured
Unacceptable numbers of Americans
are uninsured, to say nothing of the many under-insured.
- Number
of Americans without health insurance: 45,000,000 [9]
- Increase
since 1990: 10,000,000 [2]
- Number of Children that lack
health insurance: 10,000,000 [6]
- Number of Californians
in 2003 that had no health insurance at all: 3,600,000
[11]
- Number of Californians in 2003 that
lacked health insurance at some time: 6,000,000 [11]
- Number
of Californians with no prescription coverage: 10,000,000
[11]
- Percent of people age 18-24 that lack
insurance: 28.9 [6]
- Percent of the uninsured that work
or belong to a working family: 66 [6]
Being Uninsured is Hazardous
to your Health
The uninsured often cannot afford
preventive care. They wait until their minor symptoms
become serious before seeking care.
- Number of times the uninsured are more
likely to postpone seeking care, leave prescriptions
unfilled, or skip recommended treatment: 3 [12]
- Number
of deaths each year caused by lack of insurance: 18,314
[10]
- Percent by which the death rate of the
uninsured exceeds the insured: 25 [6]
Health Outcomes are Mediocre
Although it offers many cutting-edge treatments, the US
health system has mediocre outcomes for patients when measured
by standard indicators.
- Number of countries that have higher
life expectancies for males than the US: 28 [13]
- Number
of countries that have higher life expectancies for
females than the US: 43 [13]
- Infant mortality rate in
US per 1,000 babies: 6.9 [1]
- Infant mortality rate in
Sweden: 3.4 [1]
- Overall rank of US on a World Health Organization
survey of healthcare systems: 37 [13]
- Rank of Costa Rica:
36 [13]
- Rank of France, which has a single-payer system:
1 [13]
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Unaffordable Costs
Our medical system drives
staggering numbers of families to financial ruin. It is
now commonplace to hear stories of families, co-workers,
and churches holding fundraisers and garage sales to pay
for medical bills.
- Number of bankruptcies in the US in 2001:
1,458,000 [7]
- Percent of these bankruptcies for which
illness was a significant cause: 50 [7]
- Percent increase in bankruptcies
between 1981 and 2001: 360 [7]
- Percent increase in medical
bankruptcies between 1981 and 2001: 2,200 [7]
- Percent of
medical bankruptcies in which the sick person was insured
when they fell ill: 75.7 [7]
- Percent of these bankruptcies
that happen to the middle class: 90 [4]
- Percent of terminally
ill patients reporting that medical costs caused financial
problems: 39 [7]
- Rank of “lapse in health insurance
coverage during the two years” as a predictor of
medical bankruptcy: 1 [7]
- Rank of US in fairness of financial contribution to
health care: 55 [13]
- Rank of Iraq: 56 [13]
Skyrocketing Costs
Healthcare is getting more expensive
by the minute.
- Dollars the average American spent
in 2002 on medical expenditures: 5,440 [4]
- Increase in
dollars from the previous year: 419 [4]
- Number of American
families for whom health care consumes more than ¼ of
their spending: 14,300,000 [4]
- Percent of US economic
growth absorbed by healthcare costs: 24.1 [3]
- Percent
increase of health care spending in US between 1980 and
2002: 410 [1]
- Percent increase in the average annual
family premium between 2002 and 2004: 59 [2]
Hospitals Close their Doors
Because they cannot afford basic services, the uninsured
often end up in hospitals needing expensive treatments
that they cannot afford. The hospitals can only absorb
these costs for so long before going out of business.
- Uncompensated
health care in California in 2001: 540,000,000 [11]
- Number
of California emergency rooms that have closed between
1990 and 2003 due to uncompensated health care: 60 [11]
- Percentage
of California emergency rooms that have closed between
1990 and 2003 due to uncompensated health care: 15 [11]
Workers Bear Burden
As the cost of health insurance rises, more employers are
shifting the burden to workers. The cost of medical insurance
is now the most contentious sticking point in labor disputes.
- Percent
increase in the costs of employer health plans in 2004:
11.2 [2]
- Percent increase in 2003: 13.9 [2]
- Percent
of employer’s
insurance premium paid by California workers in 2003:
30 [2]
- Percent increase in workers' contributions
since 2002: 4 [2]
- Days in 2004 California grocery workers
went on strike over health care benefits: 139 [2]
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Corporate Profiteering
While medical bankruptcies skyrocket and coverage erodes,
the profits of health insurance corporations are ballooning
and their executives are taking home 8-figure salaries.
In browsing the financial listings, I did not find a
single health insurance company whose profits decreased
any year since 2002
- 2003 Salary of
Wellpoint CEO Leonard Schaeffer: 11,895,355 [8]
- 2003 Salary
of Wellpoint CFO David Colby: 21,360,790 [8]
- Gross Profit
of Wellpoint in 2003: 4,930,928,000 [8]
- Increase in profits
over 2002.9: 803,478,000 [8]
- Gross profits of United Health
Group Inc in 2004: 10,218,000,000 [8]
- Increase since 2003.9.
2,109,000,000 [8]
Bloated Bureaucracy
Insurance costs are so high because
the insurance system has grown into a bloated bureaucracy
whose purpose is not to serve consumers better or make
health care more accessible, but to maximize profits. These
bureaucracies function to confuse consumers, restrict coverage,
and reject doctors’ claims.
- Percent
change in health care employment between 1970 and 1998:
149 [6]
- Percent change in employment of health
care administrators in the same time: 2,348 [6]
- Minimum
cost in dollars of medical bureaucracy and paperwork
per year: 294,300,000,000 [6]
- Minimum cost in dollars
of medical bureaucracy per capita in the US: 1,059 [9]
- Cost
per capita in Canada’s single payer system:
307 [9]
- Percent of medical spending in US that
pays for paperwork and bureaucracy: 31 [9]
- Percent of
medical spending eaten up by waste, fraud, and excessive
prices: 50 [3]
- Approximate percent of insurance
claims from doctors that insurers will reject: 30 [5]
Lack
of Competition
Free market health insurance was supposed to lead to competitive
rates and better service, but because policies are tied
to jobs, the opposite has happened.
- Percent of Americans
who change plans because they want better care: 9 [6]
- Percent
who change health plans because employer changes: 74
[6]
- Percent who live in areas so sparsely
populated that HMOs cannot be competitive: 36 [6]
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References
[1] Barlett, Donald L. And James B. Steele. 2004. Critical
Condition. How Health Care in America Became Big Business
and Bad for Medicine. Doubleday.
[2] Colliver, Victoria. 10/11/04. In Critical Condition:
Health Care in America. San Francisco Chronicle.
[3] Colliver, Victoria. 3/9/05. Excessive Medical Expenses:
Study Finds that Half of Health Care Dollars are Wasted.
San Francisco Chronicle.
[4] Frosch, Dan. 2/3/05. Your Money or Your Life. The
Nation.
[5] Gawande, Atul. 4/4/05. Piecework: Medicine’s
Money Problem. The New Yorker.
[6] Himmelstein, David, Steffie Woolhandler, and Ida Hellander.
2001. Bleeding the Patient: The Consequences of Corporate
Health Care. Common Courage Press.
[7] Himmelstein, David, Elizabeth Warren, Deborah Thorne,
and Steffie Woolhandler. 2/2/05. MarketWatch: Illness And
Injury As Contributors To Bankruptcy. Health Affairs.
[8] Lexis Nexis Online. Company Financial Reports.
[9] Woolhandler, Steffie. 8/20/03. New England Journal
of Medicine Study Shows U.S. Health Care Paperwork Cost
$294.3 Billion in 1999. Harvard Medical School Office of
Public Affairs.
[10] Sternberg, Steve. 5/22/02. 18,000 Deaths Blamed on
Lack of Insurance. USA Today.
[11] Kuehl, Sheila. Text of 2004 California Senate State
Bill 921.
[12] Krugman, Paul. 4/22/04. Passing the Buck. The New
York Times.
[13] The World Health Organization. 2000. The World Health
Report: Health Systems: Improving Performance. The United
Nations. |
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