The Insured, The Uninsured and the Underinsured
June 20, 2008
In the latest issue of the Health Affairs journal, a study reveals that in the US about 25 million people belonging to the 19 to 64 age group in 2007 were underinsured. This has increased since 2003 when there were 16 million underinsured people.
The authors of the study give the definition of “underinsured” as pertaining to those people who earn more than $40, 000, have health insurance but still end up spending about 10 percent of their every day income on immediate pocket medical expenses. The percentage lowers to 5 percent in case of those earning below $40,000.
The study also reveals that nearly 50 million people don’t have any sort of insurance at all. So basically there are about 75 million adults who have been either uninsured or underinsured at some point of time during the course of the year.
In case you were thinking that your insurance is good enough to save you from the medical bills, think again. The study says that those people who have inadequate insurance coverage were as likely as their uninsured fellow citizens to have financial problems regarding their medical coverage. There is a good chance that they may be denied adequate health care as well. While 68 percent of the uninsured were denied needed medical care, 53 percent of the underinsured underwent the same. As regards to paying the medical bills, the underinsured are just a tad better at 45 percent than the 51 percent of the uninsured who have trouble paying the enormous medical bills.
To sum it up the authors said that you can have insurance but still go bankrupt incase you are sick, thanks to the inadequate insurance programs.
