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The remaining uninsured really can't afford it
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_HEALTH_OVERHAUL_SIGN_UPS
The health care law's historic gains in coverage may be leveling off: The Obama administration announced Thursday it expects only a slight overall increase in enrollment next year.
(Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell) said it's getting harder to sign up the remaining uninsured. They tend to be young, managing very tight household budgets, and often unaware they can qualify for taxpayer-financed assistance with their premiums.
Some people who sign up for a plan don't follow through and pay their first month's premiums. Others drop out because they can't afford even their subsidized premiums.
A new research paper from the administration finds that nearly 60 percent of the uninsured were not aware or did not understand that subsidies are available to help with their premiums. Half had difficulty affording basic necessities. And many have other financial priorities - such as paying down debt or making car repairs - before buying health insurance.
Getting and keeping coverage under Obama's law can be frustrating, especially when it comes to documenting eligibility for benefits. Insurance counselors say they are seeing many people whose subsidies were completely eliminated because of income reporting problems.
http://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/118606/OE3%20QHP-Eligible%20Uninsured_FINAL_v42%20clean.pdf
The health care law's historic gains in coverage may be leveling off: The Obama administration announced Thursday it expects only a slight overall increase in enrollment next year.
(Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell) said it's getting harder to sign up the remaining uninsured. They tend to be young, managing very tight household budgets, and often unaware they can qualify for taxpayer-financed assistance with their premiums.
Some people who sign up for a plan don't follow through and pay their first month's premiums. Others drop out because they can't afford even their subsidized premiums.
A new research paper from the administration finds that nearly 60 percent of the uninsured were not aware or did not understand that subsidies are available to help with their premiums. Half had difficulty affording basic necessities. And many have other financial priorities - such as paying down debt or making car repairs - before buying health insurance.
Getting and keeping coverage under Obama's law can be frustrating, especially when it comes to documenting eligibility for benefits. Insurance counselors say they are seeing many people whose subsidies were completely eliminated because of income reporting problems.
http://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/118606/OE3%20QHP-Eligible%20Uninsured_FINAL_v42%20clean.pdf
Comment by Don McCanne of PNHP: Out of a population of about 322 million, 32 million US residents remain uninsured. Because of the complex eligibility requirements for various insurance programs under the Affordable Care Act, there are many reasons that so many remain uninsured. Regardless, this latest data from HHS shows that the success in reducing the numbers who are uninsured is leveling off, and one of the most important reasons is that the Affordable Care Act did not make health insurance affordable for far too many of us.
Four-fifths of the uninsured have less than $1,000 in savings. Half have difficulty affording food or housing. Even if they had more money, many would feel obligated to use it to pay down debt, or to repair their homes, or to repair their automobiles that provide them transportation for employment. They still wouldn’t have enough left to purchase health insurance.
Yet when these people turn 65, they can afford Medicare. The program is automatically funded, primarily through the tax system.
If we improved Medicare, funded it completely through progressive taxes, and then provided it to everyone, not only would it be affordable for all of us, none of us would ever have to make a decision on whether our health care dollars needed to be used for food, housing or any other essentials. Medicare would automatically always be there for all of us.
Comment by me: Not all who are 65 can afford Medicare either. But they are able to supplement it with Medicaid--the so called dual eligibles. Why have all those systems separate?
38 replies
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More than we can afford without being hyper-taxed beyond Europe or Scandanavian levels.
I mean, never mind that war and corporate welfare have eternal blank checks.
No, we'd better just stick with the sensibly sensible plan of distributing a human right on the basis of how gainfully one is employed or monied, and then select who is deemed worthy (as in "not intefering with profit"
enough to receive that human right.
You'd almost have to be one to scroll through 100 posts justifying Exclusiversal WealthCare. 
