Republicans must be cheering! We, as a nation, continue our decline to the middle ages.
6
the solutions are there; this is about breaking down the healthcare pot of gold that insurance company execs make, the big pharm folks, etc. It has been said already, but take a moment to really ingest the fact that BCBS, Humana, United Healthcare, and all the drug makers are massive public companies, paying huge dividends and returns to stockholders.
This is no different, possibly much worse than fighting the NRA.
again, think about looking at the stock exchange and realizing that the companies that merely ADMINISTRATE billing and control the cost negotiations with providers answer to shareholders. It is nauseating, and I think we dare not think about it because we want to believe there is some other reason. These insurance companies are data processors and billing agents. It is disgusting, immoral and classically capitalistic. The sicker we are, as well, the more they, especially big pharma, makes. One pill leaves the need for another, no? to treat all of those side effects. I am not "anti-medicine" my point is that it is all for profit. Our lives and those we loves lives are in the hands of those who profit off of our health and sickness. We need the plan all of our delightful government officials receive.
3
Yea, That it Don, lets put the profit back into Health care by letting People Die unnecessary. Let put the Profit back into Coal by poisoning our planet.
Let’s worship Profit over all else.
Don, when the plane goes down, it doesn’t matter if your in first class or not.
4
Amazingly, nobody in the article or the comments seems to want to talk about the deaths behind these statistics.
When the ACA as a whole was under threat from the Republican Congress, estimates were that 20,800 Americans would die every year because 30 million would lose their insurance.
Now 3 million have lost it, so we can expect 2,080 to die every year, but all everybody can talk about are the financial implications.
Like tracking the lies of Trump, the NYT should at least track the dead left behind, or spell out the expected death toll for every action of the malignant narcissist in the White House (and his enablers in the Senate).
4
Access to healthcare is as basic a human right as being able to obtain food and water.
Out healthcare system is chockfull of wasteful cost. We did put men on the moon in 1969; 50 years ago. Being able to accomplish complex goals is foremost in the American character.
Why any American would argue against healthcare for every American is hard to understand.
The next president, backed by a solid congressional majority will be able to make significant improvements to our healthcare system.
7
For 35 years I managed medical benefits for a corporation. Many of those years I drank the "kool-aid" and believed the cries of many entities in the medical community. The last 10 years of my career I realized our system is one giant shell game. There is significant wasted money in our system that does not contribute to successful medical care. There are so many hands in the medical cookie jar reaping extreme wealth.
There needs to be one reimbursement rate paid for services- everyone pays the same amount for services including Medicare and Medicaid. The private sector reimbursements are the same as the government. Yes, that means many of us will pay more in taxes but subtracting our current premiums most people will pay less for medical insurance security.
With proper management we could actually witness a reduction in costs.
10
Anyone living without health insurance (unless they really don't want it for some incomprehensible reason) is poor! I hope the USA (and the New York Times) embraces a definition of poverty that respects human rights. This splitting hairs over numbers that people can barely subsist on is highly offensive and coldly classist.
8
How is Repeal and Replace working for America after the Republican takeover in 2016 from the Whitehouse to Congress to SCOTUS?!
A lot of those who lost insurance might very well be Republican and Trump voters but no one should wish anyone lost insurance even if it was the result of their own action
3
Having an Obama insurance card doesn't equate with having good healthcare from a physician. John McCain assured Americans that the American Healthcare law did not get voted in, which would have made medical care more available and affordable with stronger patient-physician-and families in charge.
There is a difference between having insurance and having health care. I eagerly look each year at the exchange options under ACA (and before Trump too) and for my county/state, the premiums were way too high and more importantly all the polices came with $4,800 deductibles/co-pays. I could have had insurance but I probably wouldn't have health care. A couple of $4800 deductibles (say a couple) could cause a bankruptcy. What ACA in my county was catastrophic care at a quite high premium. You could have health insurance and basically be uninsured. Something else is needed.
5
I have Medicaid, with zero copays. How lucky is that?
I have been utterly frantic after losing jobs and having no insurance. It is a really frightening experience. I feel for families trying to take care of kids and others.
5
This will be one of many things that will decline under Trump's regime. All aspects of our environment will also be in decline once the affects of oil and mining lobbyist tell Trump how things are to be...for their personal gain. One day at a time, Trump is Making America Gross Again.
5
So, this is Trump's new healthcare for all that was supposed to be better than anything we had ever seen and would start right after the election. Thanks for just another lie, Donnie!!
6
I'm waiting for the Dear Leader's triumpant tweet celebrating his brilliant success in damaging the evil Obamacare, as evidenced by these beautiful statistics. And promising that if we all stand behind him, he'll completely destroy Obamacare in his second term. Then millions more will be free of Socialist health care! MAGA!!
5
I gave up my Obamacare policy when my husband went on medicare because we lost our subsidy. With a family income of only $40,000, I was not eligible for subsidy and the cheapest plan was $900/month on the exchange, with a $7000 deductible before any costs were covered. So much for "affordable." So it really didn't have anything to do with Trump. Obamacare just doesn't really cut it. Coverage is lousy compared to my friends with job-attached insurance. They complain about their $2000 deductible. We just need a complete overhaul of this system, but who's going to pay for it? That's the hard question.
7
@Beth
"...but who's going to pay for it? That's the hard question"
Well, in fact that's not a hard question at all! You already mentioned how much you (and your friends) pay. Under a single-payer Medicare-for-all plan, all the premiums, deductibles, co-pays etc. etc. will go away and instead you will pay a health tax. Your employer also will replace his/her contribution with a tax.
Senator's Sander's bill envisions such a plan. And analyses of this plan (and similar plans) show that most people will save save money and the overall cost of healthcare will reduce substantially. (Remember US is at the top in healthcare costs among developed nations). You can see any doctor you want and you don't loose coverage if you are out of work.
6
I feel your pain and frustration.
If we could literally get everyone into the same program—whatever name it ends up having—then we would each pay a much smaller share of the overall costs. Also, with a single program, we could avoid the variances and duplicitous bureaucracy from multiple programs (private or otherwise) that tend to raise prices. We need to simplify, streamline and go electronic.
Of course, some (dare I say most) people dislike—to put it mildly—the idea of paying for other people’s health challenges, even though they ultimately do so through higher private insurance premiums.
3
I just read "While national enrollment in healthcare went down, it went up slightly in NYS from 5.7% to 5.4%, probably due to the Essential Plan which allows New Yorkers low-cost insurance if they earn above the minimum for Medicaid."
But these figures are meaningless: a recent NYS study shows that 40% percent of New Yorkers with insurance are “underinsured” — meaninh they avoid doctors and delay prescriptions because of cost. (see www.nyhcampaign.org/report)
Public health experts, economists, and providers know this drives people to ERs when they are much sicker, much more expensive to treat, much less likely to regain full health. One more reason for American’s terrible health metrics relative to the rest of the world.
The average family with employer-based insurance pays more on premium contributions than on food for a year, more on healthcare premiums plus out-of-pocket expenses than on housing.
Improved Medicare for All—in the Sanders and Jayapal versions and in the NYS version of NY Health Act — might actually make the rise in income reported meaningful.
Let's make HC affordable so when you feel sick or get hurt, you can afford to go to the doctor ... and get medicines or advice or treatment that works for you, without a corporate-run insurer denying it or changing the doctor's orders to boost the insurer's bottom line.
There's a reason the Japanese live so much longer than we do: 13 MD visits/per year vs our 4 visits/year —and we have more MDs.
4
"Median household income is ... essentially unchanged since the dot-com bubble burst in 2000." But Dow Jones almost tripled, meaning the rich became richer almost three times in the same period.
8
@KI
Nonsense, after growing up on the “poor side of town” and taking advantage of my “white privilege” you know working night and day for 50 years While saving and investing in the “Dow Jones”during this time managed to own my home educate my children and secure a comfortable retirement. The “American Dream” is available to anyone who wants to put in the effort, not the Democrats a party for and intended for losers.
3
Times have changed. The majority of all jobs are now low wage jobs. College graduates can’t invest when they are paying off high interest loans.
1
"But the Census Bureau figures show that the main change in the uninsured rate came from declines in Medicaid coverage. Urged by the administration, which expressed concerns about the program’s integrity, several states started asking families to prove their eligibility for Medicaid more often in 2018. The number of Americans covered by Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program fell by more than 1.6 million last year, according to administrative data."
So that accounts for some 80% of the change. Which begs the eternal question. How many were intentionally abusing the system because they were too cheap and lazy to get their own.
4
Hue dare low income families try to get free health care (so maybe they can pay the rent).
1
If you get a better job, you lose Medicaid. That's especially true in states that didn't expand it since people who would otherwise quality under ACA get no subsidy for private insurance.
6
Where is that cheap wonderful health care plan trump promised. Liar.
12
Hear the message: This administration wants you dead rather than insured.
8
I would like to know the percentage of people who have lost their health insurance under Trump and either...
Vote Republican over and over; or
Aren't "interested" in "politics" and therefore never vote.
Either group is a burden to us all and actively aid and abet efforts to make sure Americans stay impoverished and unhealthy.
I would remind all that we are the wealthiest country in the world, pay the most for our healthcare, and receive among the worst level of services for first world industrialized nation states.
pathetic.
7
I wonder who they voted for.
5
Healthcare costs! My family of four signed up for what we had when my husband was company employed (he's a contractor/self employed now) and it was over $1800/month. That was for Kaiser Permanente HMO; we WOULD be in bankruptcy. That's more than our mortgage! We opted to purchase school district insurance for the kids since they play sports. We also use our favorite Med Express, found a great doctor for my husband's diabetes, use Horizon Labs and pay with cash for all. Between Walmart pharmacy and Costco flu shots were all healthy for the most part. I pray everyday nothing major comes up.
9
Just do the math! 60yr old female making $48K per year pays over $12K in premiums, +$6-7K in deductibles before the insurance pays anything--that's 25-30% of Gross Income.
Hard not to opt out if you are healthy!
14
"Fewer Americans are living in poverty..."
And millions more are just one disease away from financial ruin.
12
There is one reason, and one reason only, that the US doesn't have a national health system: we think it's fine to treat health as an economic commodity, not a human right.
It's despicable, and I think the tide has turned. People aren't too interested in bankruptices, excess deaths, pain, and suffering in the service of increased profits or share prices for rich people (like me) and already wealthy corporations...who do all they can to avoid paying taxes.
Think how many people would go full entrepreneur were there a national health system. How many people stay in jobs for the benefits? It's a good way to discipline workers and choke off innovation.
But, somehow, a national health system is "radical." Or "anti-business." No other country sees it this way; only us...in our splendid isolation.
Honestly, it's just stupid. Spending way more for worse outcomes pretty much only as a hand-out to a bloated private health system. How is that what Adam Smith would have wanted?
Ignore the PR noise. Sanders may be a social democrat/democratic socialist; he's not aiming to socialize the means of production. He's the true inheritor of what used to be the Democratic Party: the New Deal, the Great Society.
We have AI and incredible supply-chain management and all the rest now. And the experiences of our own former social-democratic programs along with those of the entire world.
When next you hear some PR hack whine about how "it's too hard," think: moon shot. WWII. Please. Right?
7
Brilliant—you hit the nail right on the head!
1
From the beginning, the ACA left millions uninsured, even though the law mandated insurance coverage. But the greater tragedy of the ACA is that it set back, by at least a decade, a sensible, comprehensive fix to the American health care system. Even if the 2020 elections produce a blue wave, change will be difficult, because Americans remember the failure of the ACA to do what the politicians promised and the comments of Jon Gruber about the stupidity of the American voter.
3
the ACA was always meant to be a first step towards getting a true solution to healthcare in this country. Obama always hoped that the program would be refined and improved upon. Unfortunatelyr political tribalism ensured that would not happen.
4
Is this winning?
6
Come on Republicans - whatca say for yourselves?
3
MAGA
3
How can our definition of "impoverished" not include all those without adequate healthcare? Employment status and income are inadequate measures of security and stability when you can be bankrupted by an illness.
4
Our young familes with $10,000 family deductibles. Its a disgrace. Oh, but wait, they can add an HSA and make it tax deductible. Do these Republicans really think young people pay that much tax? Oh my....and let's give those wealthy people another tax break.
If you have a member of your family with serious medical condition, you will incur this $10,000 deductible year after year. One can only survive if you are driven in poverty and free insurance, but then your doctor won't be covered. Oh my ….let's give those wealthy people another tax break.
Or if you are close to retirement, say in your early 60's, you could start using your retirement dollars with paying taxes and penalties to cover those deductibles. Then you could continue to work till 80 or so. Oh my....let's give those wealthy people another tax break.
I say forget the Medicare for All....I think we should all have the Congressional Plan! They have no premiums for life and no deductibles….everything under the sun covered. Oh my,....lets give those members of Congress a tax break too.
10
I worked in health care the last 30 years...witnessing many patients going bankrupt losing their jobs, their homes...I worked tirelessly to help connect them with churches, food banks, local civil charities grants for drugs...then I saw a bit of a break when Obama care came along. Patients with pre-existing conditions getting coverage, getting test strips covered less bankruptcy etc...
Then I witnessed many of the same patients that I referred to enroll in Obamacare vote for Trump. I was surprised...I explained what they stood to lose but it didn’t matter...funny enough many sited reasons they read on Facebook.
I am sorry for the stupidity of people to not think or care about things like pre-existing conditions or why it’s important to have a healthy populace.
I for one have incredible health coverage just as our senators do...we were a career Navy family I pay $240 a year for coverage. I have used health care systems all over Europe and Asia and those systems functioned well . If everyone bought in the coverage would be cheaper...Obama care wasn’t perfect but it was a step forward not heading back to the stone age where people were not discriminated against because of a disease.
I looked into moving to Europe And health coverage was $150 a month. I’m just saying people should be outraged by what their tax dollars don’t buy! They should be outraged that their partisan senators can’t do more or that the GOP and President don’t seem to care if we have a healthy populace.
13
And yet Americans scream “socialism!” when free health care for all is mentioned.
@J "...the GOP and President don’t seem to care if we have a healthy populace."
The reality is, they prefer that we DON'T.
1
The real reason for this increase in the uninsured which this article conveniently fails to report is the end of the ACA mandate which penalized citizens who declined the health insurance. If you want to reform healthcare two things must happen. 1) complete transparency as to cost of medical care 2) universal HSA where the employer or government pay the premiums and employee contribution. A simple and elegant solution to a complicated problem.
3
And how do you control cost?
1
If the poverty threshold for a family of three is an annual income of $20,000, it appears that only one of those people can be employed because two people working full time and earning minimum wage would be classified as “middle class” or at least “not in poverty.” Surely, there needs to be an adjustment to that figure. A family of three must face a bleak existence with an income at or just above the official poverty level and I don’t imagine that many feel “not in poverty.”
7
This is one of the deliverables from the Trump administration. After vowing to provide excellent healthcare for all Americans during his campaign, he has in fact undermined The Affordable Care Act and forced more people to go uncovered. Before anyone casts a vote in 2020, they need to remember this as one of Trump's lasting legacies and broken promises. These are facts, something he is very unfamiliar with.
7
Fewer people in poverty? Without health care, they are only one medical catastrophe away from poverty. The rise in poverty rate is coming.
6
If I recall correctly Trump would replace Obamacare with a better and less expensive alternative.
Well, where is it?
Or is Trump too busy altering maps...
9
I'd be interested to see how that median wage is broken down, and how the cost of health insurance impacts it.
If a few people at the top got much wealthier, and everyone at the bottom stayed the same, the median rises, but economic power doesn't.
And if wages overall crept up, but we created more jobs with no insurance, or people have to buy insurance with higher premiums and high deductibles, then the wages for those people really did not increase. They may have less, not more, buying power. Total wages and benefits matter, not just wages.
There is a lot of complexity hidden in that "good news." But complexity is something we don't really want to think about; just a nice feel good take on our underwhleming prosperity.
3
@Cathy
The article was about the number of people living in poverty. Neither the impact of the uber-wealthy on median income or the impact of insurance costs on real-world income has anything to do with that number.
You are confusing median and average. A few multimillionaires would indeed raise the average, but NOT the median, which counts the number of people making above or below an amount.
2
I find the question of whether or not you have health insurance increasingly less important than whether the insurance offers meaningful coverage.
With the ACA's minimum health insurance standards overturned, many plans today either don't cover basics, or cost too much to use. My husband's new IT job at a hospital offered the choice of a "basic medical plan" that covered only doctor visits and generic prescriptions — no x-rays, ER visits, physical therapy, mental health, etc. — or what they called a "high deductible" plan for $1,000 a month...with a $9000 deductible!
Even "covered" means less when all the good providers nearby, and all the drugs you need, are in "tier 3." My last 3 doctor visits and prescriptions were covered at 10% or less because whoops, tier 3.
"Being insured" increasingly means nothing.
17
@Jaclyn
Or HSA's. My HR department keeps trying to push us into these. It's a joke. You pay just about the same amount for your premium every month as you do with the HMO, but absolutely NOTHING (except your one free check up a year) is covered until you hit $5,000. Oh, but you get to put your money in the account pre-tax! So basically you pay every month for "insurance" where you have to pay everything out of pocket, with the only benefit being that you are "saving" the money you would normally pay the government (so nothing is actually coming out of the insurance company's pocket).
Must be really nice to have a product that people pay you for a benefit someone else provides.
They actually tried to sell on us on this by touting how you can use your HSA to buy bandaids and sunblock.
6
The income gains for the poor and working class probably came from gains in the minimum wage. Democratic-run states did that. Republicans are opposed to raising the minimum wage, so Trump cannot take credit for that.
6
Eligibility in the Medicaid enrollment lists is a push and pull with last year's response owing to Trump's lionizing of harsh restrictions and set-backs in healthcare for women. Employment can be a major health benefit, but not if you're tuned into Trump. So, the record is not broken because of Trump's backwards drumming.
1
It is striking that this piece is filled with "perhaps" and "may have" without any actual evidence of why the number of people without health insurance has risen.
How many of them simply chose not to have insurance? How many are illegals? Was it too difficult to investigate and learn the "why"?
If you don't meet Medicaid requirements it means that you don't live in poverty and are thus, if nonetheless poor, eligible for major subsidies on the Federal Marketplace. If you make just slightly above the poverty line you likely qualify for Federal insurance subsidies in the neighborhood of $1000+/month.
With that subsidy, no matter where you live, you can find insurance on the Federal Marketplace with minimal if any out of pocket with low to zero deductables and copays.
You may not have access to the priciest doctors but you will get reasonable care.
Unless you choose not to.
3
If you above poverty level, you still can not afford health insurance because of premiums. And why would people 'just don't want the health insurance', considering the cost of health care? They are forced to take unnecessary risk, because of cost of the insurance
3
@Barooby
Low priced? Minimal deductibles and copays? Have you lost the plot?????
FOr a family under 250% Poverty Level ($42300- for a couple, $64375 for household of 4) the deductibles and copays are $7900
250%-400% FPL and the out of pockets are now $15800
For an individual under 250% FPL - $31225-, the out of pockets are $3950. (Definitely not 'low' for the waitress making $21000!)
250%-400% FPL for an individual and it is $7900
NO ACA PLAN gets rid of those out-of-pockets -- either by deductible or copay they stick the insured for the maximum possible.
3
Regarding “poverty” calculations.
This has been a contentious area.
Depending upon the criteria used, the rate might differ significantly.
The UN special “rapporteur” on extreme poverty (Philip Alston, in the UN Office Of the High Commissioner for Human Rights) wrote a report on poverty in the U.S. where he used a figure of 40 million. This was based (in part?) on a visit he made to the U.S. in November 2017.
That seems crazy high for a “wealthy” nation. And immoral, too.
2
I think these types of issues need to be regularly and frequently pointed out to people who decide their votes based only or primarily on immigration issues. Yes, we have to address our illegal immigration issues but will the money saved from that really be shifted to help people in the US? There is an assumption by some citizens it would but the reality is nothing has really been proposed to help them and any minor savings incurred go to fund wars and the military or the pockets of plutocrats.
2
As a market researcher who has spent a fair amount of time talking to people (of all income levels) about health insurance, I can tell you that the cost relative to the coverage is a huge factor in why self-insured people are dropping their coverage. The most "affordable" plans now have huge deductibles attached. Most people say to me, "Why would I spend hundreds of dollars a month in premiums when everything I do until I get to $5000 is out of my own pocket? Why not just take my chances? I never meet my deductible anyway." They feel like they're paying for insurance and then NEVER reaping any benefit from it unless something catastrophic happens. Instead they're paying for coverage AND paying for care. Once the penalty went away, many of those people decided to stop buying insurance. Who can blame them?
8
If you don't have good and affordable health insurance and health care, you might very well be poor but not even realize it. That is, you won't realize it until the medical bills arrive. In order to obtain your real likely net worth or income, those numbers must be adjusted down by an amount equal to the sum of the likelihoods of various medical ailments multiplied by the cost of each of them. If you don't have health insurance, this cost is the full cost, which is as we all know very high here in America. If you do have insurance, the cost is equal to the deductible plus the copay. Unfortunately, the annual deductibles and copays alone for a family can easily be over $10,000. Recent studies tell us that roughly half of all Americans do not have the wherewithal to pay a single unexpected $400 medical fee. Because medical expenses comprise such a large fraction of the average family's budget, it is silly to talk about poverty based on a statistic that does not take into account health insurance and health care. The Trump McConnell Republican sabotage of the ACA is making Americans sicker and poor. The same can be said for their planned attack on Social Security and Medicare, justified by deficits caused by the tax cut for the rich.
7
That’s because of the fact that they don’t have health insurance.
If they get health insurance, they will be living in poverty.
In America we believe in healthcare designed by Congress, where Congress gets healthcare, and everyone else is on their own.
10
Your photograph of the individual being fitted for eyeglasses was taken inside the Jacobs Building on the grounds of the Tennessee Valley Fair. It was taken at a RAM (Remote Area Medical) clinic. Patients art RAM clinics are typically those without health insurance.
9
Not having insurance can send you into poverty. Not paying for insurance can keep you out of poverty.
Where's that great healthcare Trump and the GOP promised us?
10
How accurate though and does it include expats? If you live outside the US you have little need for the high priced 'basic' plans.
2
You’re supposed to read a Dickens novel. Not be a character in one.
10
@Bryan Please PAB can I have some more quarter pounders.
1
I work for a large hospital system and our health insurance is a mess. What was once a quality benefit has turned into an embarrassment.
7
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This means all Americans have a right to:
Housing
Education
Health care
Equality under law
There is no freedom without these.
12
I've been paying penalties over having health insurance because it was cheaper for me although by no means 'cheaper' since I am right on the edge of earning enough to not qualify for health insurance subsidies. That's because health care plans offered to me were basically for catastrophic coverages with 5500-6000 deductible and $450 or higher monthly premiums. For many years I've been paying for my health care related visits out of pocket anyways when I needed to do so. I grew up in the Soviet Union under the free health care system. Surely, there was bribery, but it was not widely spread within the healthcare system. Health Care system should not be profit based. It's inhumane. I understand that Obama Care was an attempt to start making changes in the existing system and a lot of people have benefited from it. I just could not afford paying so much money while not getting any benefit unless something catastrophic happened to me. A few years ago I was experiencing pain that could have been related to appendicitis and I thought of flying oversees for a surgery hoping that it would not get worse until I got there i.e. I would not die somewhere in the airport or up in the air... Fortunately a single visit to a doctor for which I paid $300 clarified that I did not have to have an operation. I understand I am fortunate. If the health care system is unchanged in the US I will have to retire in another country.
10
The fact that the unemployment rate, even for those with disabilities or the formerly incarcerated who traditionally have the most difficulty finding jobs, but fewer people have health insurance is understandable if you consider that the majority of new jobs are in service industries paying minimum wage or just above and lacking benefits.
6
This is not a side effect of the Trump regime's policies, it's one of the priority goals of the Republican Party. The propaganda trolls can defend, deflect, and divert all they want, but the former GOP is now the greatest enemy of the United States and the American people - and need to be dealt with as such.
12
Many more Americans are about to live in poverty if Republicans cut Medicare and Social Security in Trump's 2nd term.
Donald Trump won’t say it, but Republicans in the Senate will: Social Security and Medicare would be on the chopping block in a second Trump term. Pointing to rising deficits, Republican senators have all but promised to gut entitlements if Trump gets four more years.
25
median household income has no meaning for the USA because there is so much inequality and the numbers in the 1 % upper range induce a false idea of what the economic level of the country really is.
But Americans like that. To pretend to be rich !
The fact is that 60 % of US citizens live on minimal wage.
Without health insurance, without any retirement plan, without paid vacations.
Highest violent crime rate by 8 times higher than Europe and highest incarceration rate also by 8 times superior to the European average.
11
@JPH
The most recent statistics from the BLS show that 2.1% of the workforce is paid at or below minimum wage on a per hour basis. https: https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2018/pdf/home.pdf. The biggest region with minimum wage workers is the South, clocking in at 36% and the Midwest, 23.4%
New England has 4.7% of it workforce at minimum wage and their northern neighbors in Canada stand at 10% of their workforce. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2018001/article/54974-eng.htm
So it would be really great if you could cite your sources.
3
@JPH
Oh boy... a statistical illiterate
Median means 50% have more and 50% have less.
Average is taking the total number of $$ of income and dividing it by people. It is the old joke about there are 3 guys in a bar and 1 makes $20000, 1 $35000 and 1 $50000. Add $20K + $35K +$50K and it is $105000 and then divide by 3. Their "AVERAGE" income is $35000. Their MEDIAN income is $35000 - 1 makes more and 1 makes less
The guy making $50k leaves and Bill Gates walks in and takes his place......and their "average" income is ........Answer - way way way more than the former average of $35000! The median income is $35000. 1 has less than that and 1 has more
1
While I share the concern of many about the increasing lack of " health security " I seriously doubt that the answer to this dilemma is to give increasing power to health insurance companies. They own a large share of the " blame " for the mess we currently find ourselves in. They have created a bloated system where 20-25% of premiums go to administration and bureaucracy. There are quite a few people I know who had " insurance " under Obama Care but it was unusable because they could not afford the high deductibles before any coverage kicked in( 5000 dollars and above).
4
Trump's moves to discourage enrollment in the ACA are one reason that fewer people have healthcare coverage. The enrollment period was drastically cut last year. Advertising was virtually non-existent in my area.
Meanwhile, healthcare is hard to access for those without insurance and almost impossible to pay for, especially for those who don't know they can negotiate before a visit or procedure.
I favor Medicare for those who want it with private insurance for those who prefer to retain it.
7
To tell the truth, there is no need for additional discouragement, the health insurance became simply unaffordable. We need better system
3
Do not tell Paul Krugman about these results! It could spoil his whole afternoon.... On a positive note, it is Tuesday so we know there is ample time to pick through the data and try to find the most negative data points to craft into an essay about how the Trump economy is a "disaster".
4
@michaelf It isn't Trump's economy. But, on a high note, how is that deficit cutting that Trump promised coming along?
3
People can not afford expensive for profit health care. Where is Trump’s plan, the one he bragged about during his campaign?
Sooner or later everyone gets sick or injured. So, sooner or later outrageous medical bills will force folks into the poor house...
17
The defining factor driving this administration and republican "governance" is cruelty.
10
Just wait until the Supreme Court overturns the ACA in the Barr/GOP led lawsuit currently winding its way through the courts.
9
How can you be richer if you cannot afford health care? Less poor people you say? Do not think so.
18
Every single long term jobs projection for the US is predicting massive losses due to automation and technology. That alone should be evidence that employer-based healthcare isn't going to work in the future. Why isn't that simple correlation being discussed more?
15
A couple of ER visits and a person can be in poverty. Most people w/o health insurance forego doctors and dentists.
20
I question whether people who continue to revile President Obama for saying that under the ACA citizens can keep their health care plan and their doctors have ever had employee-provided health insurance, which is characterized by change and uncertainty. During my 25 years with my employer, our carrier has been switched multiple times. Our current flavor of the month is Cigna, our fourth carrier in the past nine years. These changes often force us to change doctors when we find that our preferred physicians are suddenly out of network. National health insurance would eliminate this chaos, in addition to conferring a host of other advantages that people in advanced countries with universal health care enjoy.
26
And I had problem before Obamacare as well as with Obamacare. I want something less problematic than market- based
2
@AACNY Prove it. Otherwise, it's just another self-serving (Trump-serving) lie.
2
I cannot help thinking that the game plan is to keep the majority of people poor poor and struggling. Only so can the rich prevail. Keep people struggling, lacking healthcare, unable to finance education, deny them decent vacation and maternity leave/family leave, keep their accrued wealth tenuous at best and in danger of being wiped out by illness. A perfect system to curtail mobility and keep the plebs in their place. Only a small percentage will ever get ahead and rise out of poverty, but that unfortunately seems the plan.
22
@Alienist When you're right, you're right.
We are causing the majority of our own health issues that require expensive health care by eating the factory created and fast foods that we buy. The multi billion dollar marketing campaigns created to trick us and perpetuate the falsehood that corporate food is ok for us to consume has been working for centuries. That won’t change. What can change are the individual choices we make at least 3 times a day to consume food that makes us obese, diabetic and overall that much closer to death.
6
@Maxy Unfortunately for most people the choice isn't healthy food versus unhealthy food, it's unhealthy food versus no food. It's a massive problem that's been growing for years and shows no signs of slowing down.
16
Not all health issues are caused by diet.
3
@Maxy
That does not account for accident so or injuries. And by the way , my sister who taught tai chi and ate very healthily
died of cancer after being bankrupted by her illness even though she had insurance.
5
Socialized healthcare works. There are over 30 countries today that have longer life expectancies than we do, at a lower per capita cost. Every one of them has some form of "socialized" healthcare, and most or all of them have a higher percentage of small, family-owned-and-operated farms and businesses. We should send a fact-finding committee to each of those countries, and cherry-pick their best policies. Let those who oppose "socialized" healthcare have the freedom to die prematurely in poverty.
24
Having a program available for to get Health Care through the government would be a good thing. But forcing 180 million people to give up employer provided plans and private insurance is ridiculous. I don’t trust the left with my healthcare. Anyone endorsing MCFA just wants control and to ration care for population control. This is a huge losing issue for Democrats. You can ruin everyone’s care for less than 10% of our population. Come up with a plan that addresses the problem without ruining it for everyone.
6
Vote Democrat - they won’t get rid of private health insurance- they will work to make health insurance available for more people. Republicans are coming after Medicare and Medicaid after they are done with Obamacare.
18
@JOSEPH
You want to keep your employer provided health insurance.
This year, your employer will renegotiate the contract. Your coverage will change. The company providing the insurance may change. Premiums, copays, deductibles are all subject to change.
Or your employer may decide to stop providing health insurance. Or go out of business. Or merge with a different company with a different take on coverage. You may lose your job, decide to take another job, become too ill to hold a job.
No one gets to “keep” their employer provided health insurance.
No one.
25
@JOSEPH And I don't trust the right wing with ANYTHING. Come up with a plan that addresses that.
2
We aren't really surprised are we -- given the Republicans' war on healthcare?
12
It was the GOP that weakened the ACA. When are Trump supporters going to realize it?
20
AACNY - perhaps you need to go from state to state and see how the red states have tried their hardest to weaken ACA. If all 50 states would have complied with the ACA you and your business would not be in the predicament you are in now.
3
Only in the USA are businesses expected to provide expensive for profit health insurance for employees. I don’t understand why small businesses do not wholeheartedly support Medicare for All. Your European and Canadian (and even Mexican) competitors do not have this additional expense.
1
I thought I read yesterday that there was, since 2015, a dramatic increase in poverty and homelessness especially among baby boomers with no retirement savings and very few prospects for work.
7
@AACNY How about some facts instead of just assertion? https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/032216/are-we-baby-boomer-retirement-crisis.asp
4
What are your sources. Fox News doesn’t count as a fact based source.
You may not go bankrupt because of medical bills, but I assure you, if you get cancer, your savings will take a hit. It happened to me.
1
Republican's don't believe in picking winners and losers, and if you are sick and not wealthy you are a loser in their eyes, period. Please die quickly without dragging down the healthier and more successful.
15
A lack of health insurance is a form of poverty, and literally a deadly form.
32
@Ryan: Well thought and well said. Thank you.
3
Cutting Medicaid is ok; cutting Medicare is not ok
2
Because, what? Your wellbeing is important and the health of people on Medicaid is not?
16
@Chickpea Exactly. It's the American Way! (Or at least, the Republican way...)
Guess instead of being insured people opt to eat--so Yeah --in America if you are above poverty line without healthcare insurance--not really above poverty line--are you?
12
No, "America doesn't need a single-payer Medicare for All because Bernie Sanders is a grumpy old man and is not a Democrat".
2
They are one illness from bankruptcy and homelessness. America is Great Again!
10
Congratulation to the people who lifted themselves out of poverty!
I hate to mention it, but you're just one doctor visit or one drug prescription away from plunging back into the poverty hole!
14
It's tragic that in the 21st century any American has to worry about choosing to pay for treatment of their health related issues or their rent/mortgage/car payment.
The GOP and the current administration has slowly stripped the ACA of it's value not even caring what will happen to those Americans who obtain their insurance through the ACA.
Let us also not forget it was the George W. Bush administration that did not allow Medicare to seek lower pharmaceutical prices through negotiation.
Lastly those who do not support some type of universal health care for this country have top notch insurance for themselves and their loved ones.
9
@Mary Ann
Since the ONLY TWO changes to the ACA have been
(1) method of payment of cost-sharing subsidies for those under 250% Federal Poverty Level. Use to stick the taxpayers with the bill but now insurers bake that cost of reduced deductibles + copays into the premiums for the plan. (Obama botched the law - huge error in the law meant the taxpayers can NOT cover the subsidies - court threw out paying for them with taxpayer $$)
(2) end to the hated penalty. In 201-2016, of those who opted for the penalty, 80% had household incomes below $50000 and 90% were below $75000
The premiums may have been called "affordable" but the out-of-pockets were not so people looked at what the plan would cost them in total and skipped it.
In 2015 the NYT was wailing about the deductibles making the coverage worthless
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/us/politics/many-say-high-deductibles-make-their-health-law-insurance-all-but-useless.html
Perfectly logical to NOT buy coverage you can not afford to use (the deductible). It is money down a rat hole. ANd if they do get ill, bankruptcy is cheaper and most do not have anything for the creditor to seize (no stocks, no bonds, no huge savings etc)
5
Sorry, AnnS, the Trump administration has made a lot more detrimental changes than that, and is STILL trying to pass legislation that would remove protections for pre-existing conditions.
10
@Jordan F
Can you cite your sources, like AnnS did, please?
The math here is problematic. If there is less insurance coverage and slightly more income, this makes for no increase in pay or worse bankruptcy. Health insurance through employment is income, and if you don't have it you are earning
less. This is a zero sum game and guess who the losers are. Workers as voters must stand up and demand health insurance as a survival issue. There is no doubt that without insurance your life is in jeopardy.
11
I am one of those who dropped coverage and am quite happy not having to pay for a useless high priced health plan. $485/ month plus paying the first $6800 deductible was ridiculous. Not to mention keeping my earnings low to minimize the premiums. We need health care reform but not the ACA.
11
Glad you feel comfortable putting your financial security at risk. Everyone is healthy. until they are not. The idea thst someone knows what insurance they will 'need' is a fallacy.
Speaking from experience as someone whose spouse was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in his forties, who anyone would have considered 'healthy' prior to his diagnosis.
18
@smh
The OP will still get care. Hospitals won't turn him/her away.
80%+ of the US do NOT have the kind of assets that would be at risk in a bankruptcy. They don't have the savings or stocks or much of anything for creditors to seize.
Thinking everyone in the US needs to 'protect' their assets through health insurance if they become il is SOOOOO upper middle class thinking
Bankruptcy is cheaper than the premiums
6
Medicare for all is the only way to keep your doctor. Your expensive for profit health insurance tells you what doctor you can or cannot see, what hospital you can or cannot be admitted to, what health care you can or cannot have. When your employer decides to change your health insurance (probably for a cheaper one) you have no say in the matter.
1
The GOP's replacement they've been promising? Was to replace your insurance with a big gaping NOTHING. I'm over these people. I'm voting for Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. It's time for a new American rebirth.
10
My family gets no subsidies to buy our health insurance. My husband owns his own business and I work with him. We pay $1200 a month for health insurance for two of us and a child under 18. We also pay for dental insurance with is another $100 a month. We still end up paying out of pocket costs for things outside of routine visits.
So think about that we pay $1300 a month in health and dental. Deductibles are very high. And no we are not rich. We haven’t had a vacation in over 3 years. We don’t eat at fancy restaurants and we don’t drive fancy cars. Husband drives a pickup and I drive an old Subaru. We are college educated but we are not millionaires. We are the middle class.
We are making ends meet but I will say that we have to be really sick or it has to be an emergency before we walk into a doctor’s office. Why? Even with insurance our copay is $50 before the cost of tests and any prescriptions. Sometimes that can be hundreds of dollars. Also insurance goes up $50 a year.
We would gladly pay more in taxes so everyone can benefit from having healthcare and it being affordable.
24
Because a small tax would be a lot cheaper than high monthly premiums (always rising), high copays, and high deductibles
It is unacceptable in the 21st century, the biggest economy in the world, the richest country in the world the people living in the country not having a basic right, health care! We need Single-Payer Medicare-For-All.
11
It is unacceptable in the 21st century, the biggest economy in the world, the richest country in the world the people living in the country not having a basic right, health care! We need Single-Payer Medicare-For-All.
2
It is unacceptable in the 21st century, the biggest economy in the world, the richest country in the world the people living in the country not having a basic right, health! We need Single-Payer Medicare-For-All.
1
The middle to upper middle class continues to be unduly punished in America. It is becoming all but impossible to exist unless you are a 1%er or poverty level and qualifying for government aid. Case in point- started a new career in a new state several years ago. Qualified for the health care subsidy for 2 years. The 3rd year (2018), as a family of 4, and much hard work on my part, I just exceeded the subsidy allowance. IRS demanded the nearly $20,000 back (which I am still paying off). For the 2019 calendar year, couldn't touch marketplace insurance....it is literally the same amount as our mortgage....nearly $2000 a month. Mind you, a healthy (thank God) mom, dad and 2 daughter family that has barely submitted a claim against our Blue Cross Blue Shield policy. And don't get me started on the sky high deductibles.
16
That’s why the middle class in other first world nations live better. They have free health care and they don’t have to worry about saving thousands for their children’s college education
11
How do we know that anything that comes from the federal government is true? If officials were willing to change the weather forecast to support Trump, what else are they doing?
6
"Fewer Americans Live in Poverty, but More Lack Health Insurance"
How is this not more poverty?
16
@Joyce Ice
Learn the definitions before prattling
Poverty level for 2 people is $16910. (Varies by household size)
In my county, the median-age median-size median-income for the county is looking at $18000 -22000 JUST IN PREMIUMS ( + $15900 in deductibles and copays)
Not qualifying for the Obamacare welfare-gravy-train subsidies, (just over 400% Federal Poverty Level), they have to spend $33900-37900 on healthcare per Obamacare
THey are not poor but 50%of gross income is NOT an option
7
@AnnS
“Obamacare welfare-gravy-train-subsidies.”
So, people you know (yourself?) can’t afford the premiums because they would be half your income? A reasonable statement and no, that is not right.
But, because people poorer than yourself do qualify, you somehow feel obligated to refer to these subsidies in a disparaging manner?
Poor people aren’t the reason you can’t afford healthcare coverage. Health insurance companies making record profits are.
Obamacare was never the solution. It was a less than optimal compromise between what Americans need and deserve, and what politicians representing insurance lobbyists would allow to actually happen.
10
People working two jobs and still not making it, is not out of poverty. People are playing with definitions, statistics and thresholds. Thanks to the ACA, more people are insured, but many more are not.
8
The ACA has taken its toll as more people flood the already crowded doctors office. Not only are fewer people insured but the quality of care is now being handed to less well trained individuals. As primary care M.D.s and D.O.s exit the field due to retirement it's more likely now that they will be replaced by a Physician's Assistant or Nurse Practitioner. Both valuable health care providers but they are not docs. Why? Because they are paid less than a doctor.
As the market is flooded with Medicaid and ACA recipients (the 2 lowest paying patient populations) each practice struggles to meet their overhead costs. There are basically 2 choices 1.) improve care ( make it so much better than it is now that people are healthier and need less expensive care) 2.) limit care.
The ways to limit care are to see more patients in a given amount of time (shorter visits) and/or use less expensive health care providers.
4
If medical school were free to those qualifying we wouldn’t have a shortage. My European cousins went through medical school tuition free and now they serve their communities
Or maybe we should limit health care to the rich do the doctors won’t be so busy.
5
So ACA is a bad thing, because more people are insured and seeking preventive care? Interesting logic. I guess the better alternative is uninsured getting their care in emergency rooms, with the rest of us picking up the tab.
By the way, medical students seeking primary care specialty started declining long before ACA.
2
"Fewer Americans live in poverty..." according to who? Never mind; the $10 extra that put me over the official poverty-line makes all the difference with government number counters.
11
Many Republicans in Congress have a plan if Trump is re-elected. They want to "reform" entitlements - which is voodoo G.O.P. talk for cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
We'll be back to George W. Bush's idea to "privatize" Social Security - putting the most enlightened public policies of this country at huge risk.
If you are on Social Security and Medicare - or you plan to be when you retire, vote in 2020 to throw all the G.O.P. out - ouf of the White House, the Senate, the Congress.
Or this is what's coming. Cutting entitlements. Cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.
Senator Joni Ernst referred to this a week ago in a speech she didn't know was being recorded. She said the G.O.P. leaders need to "get together behind closed doors" to "tackle entitlement reform" away from the eyes of those she predicted will oppose it.
Don't say you haven't been warned.
11
@fast/furious
And what do you think Andrew Yang is proposing with his "freedom dollars", if not entitlement reform by swapping a cash payment for the current services available to the poor?
3
I honestly don't blame people for not buying health insurance. Health insurance and health care itself are entirely unaffordable in this country. Due to ridiculously high deductions, so called 'insurance' does nothing to make the care more affordable. It's net worth insurance in case of a major health event, and nothing more than that.
Absent an individual mandate, for most people, the smartest decision is to skip buying the insurance and just pay as you go, and hope they make it to medicare before they experience major health issues.
8
@KH
I did that in the 1990s when I couldn't get insurance because of a pre-existing condition. I spent years "paying out of pocket" for everything - routine care,
surgical procedures and I had RXs that were frequently
$1,000 a month.
It took 9 years of that for me to become disabled by lack of care, lose my job, eventually become bankrupt and lose my home.
Nobody should ever be in the position I was in. My life was ruined because I couldn't get affordable comprehensive insurance coverage. My health will never recover. My financial situation will never be stable again.
People who think they can just manage on their own without insurance and "hope they make it to Medicare" is folly. Many people trying that will become very sick, die or be financially ruined before they reach their 60s.
19
Hospitals and cancer centers have plenty of patients well below medicare age...and cancer treatments can easily exceed $1 million.
Even an emergency appendectomy can run into the tens of thousands.
7
@fast/furious
I’m so sorry. Words fail.
Thank you for telling your story.
5
Thankfully, because I didn't have to pay the shared responsibility payment this year for not having a compliant insurance plan (because they are expensive and don't cover anything that I currently need), I was able to actually afford to get some expensive medical procedures and other exams and tests that I needed. That was a big help to me personally and I am grateful for the reprieve even though I suspect that fine will come roaring back with a vengeance after 2020.
3
What’s missing from this snapshot is personal debt.
https://peerfinance101.com/average-debt-by-state-loans/
The reality of this debt leaves most Americans in a precarious financial position, often one unplanned crisis away from financial ruin.
Often, that crisis is medical, and even with health insurance, can quickly take any middle class household into default.
Bankruptcy from medical bills is not a problem faced by people in any of the other developed countries, only here.
Only in America are citizens’ wellbeing sold out for corporate gain. And, under Trump and Republican rule, the monetization of citizens only increases.
12
@Chickpea
Medical bankruptcies are not recorded in other countries because the bankruptcy process is different in many countries.
The question of why somebody is insolvent is not as simple as it seems.
It's one thing to declare bankruptcy because you can't pay bill X, which happens to be a medical bill. That's what American stats capture.
It's the same thing to declare bankruptcy because you can't pay your mortgage, and you can't pay your mortgage because you lost your job when you got sick. That's also medical bankruptcy, but it doesn't show up as that in the stats.
2
@Viv
Most other developed countries have universal coverage— there are no medical bills to add to their debt.
5
@Chickpea
False. Here is a map of what it costs to have cancer in Canada. https://globalnews.ca/news/1656699/the-cost-of-cancer-how-much-do-cancer-drugs-cost-canadians/.
1
Why pay for insurance today when 20 candidates are promising it will be free tomorrow?
5
@James
Of course, with a single payer system, it won’t be free. We will pay via taxes just as they do in other countries.
But instead of enormous profits being siphoned into corporate pockets, our taxes will go to healthcare providers.
And, as has been the case all over the world, what we pay in tax increases (and any copays under a national system) will be quite a bit less than the premiums and copays we are paying now.
More importantly, the medical debt and related bankruptcies will end.
5
And why shouldn’t it be free? Why shouldn’t Americans have what citizens of every other first world nation have had for decades?
2
America ( I mean GOP and Wall Street ) doesn’t care about the people , denying them accessible and affordable healthcare, education , housing , clean environment etc .
Greedy politicians and Wall Street can’t get enough $$$ , while squeezing the last drop of blood from American workers .
The problem is not only the millions of uninsured Americans , the second huge problem is being underinsured !
6
I know from sad personal experience that a person who doesn't have medical insurance is only a few steps from chaos, ill health, disability, job loss, possible death or crushing debt, bankruptcy and home loss.
This is inexcusable in the United States of America.
Trump must be defeated for a million reasons but his determination to gut the ACA is criminal. It's pathetic that most of Trump's supporters are people too ill-informed to oppose Trump's policies that threaten their very lives.
Trump's determination - and that of the G.O.P. - to destroy the ACA and who refuse to offer any kind of health care coverage to millions of Americans makes them unfit to govern.
It also makes them an existential threat to the people of this country.
We currently have a president and G.O.P. politicians who are quite happy to have millions of Americans die or suffer financial ruin because they lack access to affordable health care.
This administration promotes a policy that will kill or ruin many hardworking Americans. What kind of government is that?
15
@fast/furious
You mean the millions who got priced out of coverage because premiums went up up up with the ACA (yeah even when it first started) because it requires the insurers to pay unlimited $$$ for absolutely everything?
Under the first 2 years of the ACA, premiums jumped nearly 200%++ in most areas and deductibles rocketed upwards
And those who do not get premium subsidies got hammered and have had to drop it. They have too much income for help (over $69000 for a couple for example who each make $16.59 an hour) and too little to pay the sticker price.
THe household of the median age median income and median size for my county are looking at $18000-22000 in premiums + $15900 (deductibles & copays) on incomes of around $70000. SO NOT going to happen so they drop it or buy short-term non-compliant plans
You mean THOSE roughly 8,000,000 -10,000,000 people?
3
@AnnS. If the “stats” are true, thank the GOP, which has done everything possible to destroy the ACA from within, instead of working to improve it.
2
so why not focus your ire on the INSURANCE companies? The ones where their CEOs pull down $30M a year in compensation.
2
I work for a large worldwide corporation. We need to restructure 20k headcount. Guess where we do it? In the US, for the most part because it is easy!!! Thursday is the day... Just lay them off, who cares? In Europe we have some security and laws and it is not easy. In the US? Who cares? Do you, Americans? Also if they lose health benefits and need to sell everything they ever had, to cover if getting cancer or diabetes or any other horrible sickness. No one cares.... and you do not either..:
20
And thanks in part to UBER & LYFT for contributing a few million of their drivers to the uninsured side of the balance sheet.
16
@Bob Cass
You can thank WalMart for that too. One of my relatives works at WalMart full time and has no health care coverage.
9
@AACNY
It will be the family coverage that is probably out of reach.
ACA (per Obama admin in mid-2013) says that if employer coverage for JUST the employee (individual only) is less than 9% of their wages, it is affordable and the worker AND their family can not get subsidies on the exchange - have to pay sticker price
THat means the worker has to take the employer coverage for a family plan no matter what the premiums are for the employer coverage.
Just the employee - less than 9% of wages, affordable
Employee-only coverage less than 9% of wages but family plan is $15000 in premiums FROM THE EMPLOYEE, ACA and Obama said "Still affordable" - take it or do without or pay sticker price on the Exchange. Result: workers do without
2
The government does this but wont allow a national euthanasia policy.. oh wait, lack of health care is a euthanasia policy, i get it now.
7
Premiums are too expensive. Only middle class and the wealthy pay for it to protect assets. A national disgrace. Bernie 2020 Medicare For All....NOW.
4
Medicare for all means you are still going to pay for high insurance premiums through high taxes
4
Less expensive than for profit health care, the most expensive health care on earth.
3
Memo to the heartless GOP: Mission accomplished. Happy?
6
Number one reason for bankruptcy in America is due to healthcare costs. There are families today spending their life’s savings, even getting a second mortgage to pay for the medical costs of a loved one. In our very Blue state, a couple in their 70’s committed suicide be sue they could not afford the high cost of keeping one of them alive. This atrocity shouldn’t happen in the wealthiest nation on earth! However, spending trillions in Afghanistan and Iraq is a-okay! Or worse....the Air Force propping up an obscure Scottish airport near the Republican president’s Turnberry Resort by spending eleven million dollars in fuel is a-okay! Our citizens deserve and need universal healthcare!
189
@Mari Based on the data, one cannot actually attribute the cause of bankruptcy to medical costs. When people are sick, they generally stop working. Without income coming in, the mortgage bills keep coming and living expenses are put on a credit card. By the time the person has recovered and back to work, the damage is done (whether or not they have paid $1 towards the medical bills).
So, unless we are going to start requiring AFLAC-type insurance for every American, bankruptcy will always be correlated with illness (which is correlated with higher medical bills). This is why the ACA didn't have an impact on "medical debt bankruptcy." Since money is fungible, not paying your mortgage when you are sick is just as likely to put one in bankruptcy as not paying your medical bills.
More to the point, however, is that in the US bankruptcy is not even the worst outcome (the worst would be struggling for 20 years to pay down debt). Retirement savings are protected and generally your house and car are also shielded from creditors. Bankruptcy is literally a fresh start. In Europe, bad debt is much harder to discharge. T
5
@James
Sir, you need to brush up on bankruptcy law, which has been toughened up considerably. Joe Biden was in the past 20 yrs a great champion of making personal bankruptcy very very difficult. Bankruptcy law now reflects how much "starting over with a clean slate" is no longer available for most Americans. Most personal bankruptcy now requires that a portion of the debt must be repaid. There are some states, like Florida, where homeowners can declare bankruptcy but keep their house.
But in most states, your home and other property are not shielded or protected in a bankruptcy proceeding.
28
@James
Our bankruptcy laws have been severely weakened. My daughter almost declared bankruptcy due to an unexpected hospitalization. Luckily, I found out that “ non- profit” hospitals are required to give so much “ charity care per year ( or is it they must write off a certain amount of debt. Medical costs are absolutely outrageous and barbaric, while at the same time hospitals build palaces.
23
That all depends how poverty id defined. The current poverty guidelines are way off and need to be revised upward. In fact here in NY, poverty has increased drastically mainly because the rents have doubled and tripled over the last decade.
1
The only good thing about enduring some startling job losses and economic adjustments in our family over the past few years is that we are now covered by Meridian--Michigan's Medicaid Plan. It's the best health insurance my family has ever had. And it's saving us 28k a year in out of pocket insurance costs. Don't let anyone tell you government sponsored health care is impossible--it's a lie!
8
Health insurance is not the same as medical care. Stop trying to make it sound as if the insurance companies have magical powers, all the have is lust for our money.
9
Funny. The only way I could avoid being impoverished was to DROP my New York State of Health insurance (ACA Exchange) plan. Rent went up, living expenses went up, insurance went up, something had to go. On the plus side, I can now afford to visit the doctor AND the dentist.
I wish health insurance was affordable. But the premiums are too high and the deductibles are insane. Why does everyone have to pay the same deductible regardless of income? It should be on a sliding scale.
17
They may not be in poverty now, but many will be there with one major illness or accident under our current system, especially when even non-profit hospitals are suing patients for non-payment of major bills. And especially when they charge them more than if they had insurance!
9
Can a follow- up article looking at how the rates of people insured compare in the states that accepted Medicaid expansion vs. states who refused Medicaid expansion (primary example of " Cutting off your nose to spite your face.")
NC refused the Medicaid expansion, leaving thousands with incomes too high for original Medicaid, but too low to qualify for ACA coverage.
8
@Katydid
Why does North Carolina keep voting for Republicans?
4
What a lot of fact-free nonsense being posted
(1) Those who have to pay the full Obamacare premiums are dropping out. They can not afford it. In Iowa they went from being 20% of those buying it to being 5%. The Iowa premiums went through the roof - ACA population sicker than expected. 1 Iowa patient costs $12,000,000 a YEAR! Insurers fled & the 1 that came back tripled the premiums.
Median-age median size median-income household in my county (MI) is looking at $18000-22000 in JUST premiums + $15900 in out-of-pockets (deductibles & copays)
That is what happens when insurance has to pay without limit for absolutely everything
(2) The changes to the ACA post-Trump are minimal
Premiums subsidies are the same
Cost-sharing subsidies still exist & are now baked into the premiums rather than paid by taxpayers (Obama cocked up writing the law)
End of the hated penalty for not having coverage
(3) Back in 2015 the NYT was wailing that the ACA high deductibles made the insurance useless. NYT "Many See I.R.S. Penalties as More Affordable Than Insurance" & "Many Say High Deductibles Make Their Health Law Insurance All but Useless"
(4) OF those who opted for the penalty over coverage, in 2015-2016, 90% had income BELOW $75,000 & 80% had incomes below $50000. The premiums + deductibles made coverage USELESS. NYT "Millions Pay the Obamacare Penalty Instead of Buying Insurance. Who Are They?"
(5) Uninsured rate started climbing in fall enrollment in 2015-2016.
11
That is what happens when you relies on free-market-based health-care. The problem is not Obamacare, health care free uncontrollable before it, that's why Obamacare was necessary. The problem that Obamacare was not able to solve the problems because it was built on faulty foundation of the private insurance. That's why we need Medicare for All, to solve the problem of unaffordability of the health care.
16
@yulia
Bottom line on that will be difficult
Millions of unemployed -former insurers & medical billing staff
And the biggest of all - lots take a HUGE pay cut.
Median nurse in the UK makes $40000+/-. Median nurse in the US makes $60000 - and in California $100000
GP in the UK - around $90000 but in the US $150000+
Specialist in the UK - $12000 -150000 but in the US it is $300000 - 700000
And save any whining from US physicians about their student loans.
A PHD in biochemistry is in school just as long 7 has just as much in costs but doesn't make that kind of money
Vets have equally enormous costs for vet school - $400000++. And they never make over $150000 a year. Most make in the $75000 -100000 range.
BTW the NHS is NOT paying for those $1,000,000, $2,000,000 drugs for people. The cost benefit (added life vs cost per year) does not pencil out. So get use to being told "NO" as in "NO that treatment is not cost effective even if that $1,000,000 will give you another 13 months"
5
Thank you. Your words will fall on deaf ears - these are the same people who believed you could keep your plan and doctor.
3
Please take all the statistics and stuff ‘em.
For many self-employed people the mandate to have health insurance or be penalized during an economic downturn was a terrible blow. If you wonder how Obama voters turned to Romney voters and then Trump voters - this is part of the reason...
As one of the self-employed we were then subjected to the price gouging by the insurance companies that came with the mandate. My premium jumped from $290 a month to $600. Making $21,000 annually - a third of my income went to an insurance company that I may...I MAY have used $500 in services that year.
Oh but you can get a subsidy ...blah blah blah. Each time, I was denied. Just like the Bronze, Silver, Gold plans baloney - this was more nonsense and subterfuge - when all I needed was affordable health care.
Figure it out and your data and graphs and percentages be damned because what my numbers tell me was that I was paying a third of my income in premiums that I didn’t really need or use.
I didn’t vote for Romney or Trump, but I did vote for Sanders in our 2016 primary because he wasn’t the status quo that HRC represented. The left, the media, and politicians should wise up and figure out affordable healthcare in this country - because if we don’t, it will continue to contribute to the cultural upheaval we continue to experience in this country.
19
@bluez
If you actually earned $21k annual you qualified for ObamaCare subsidies.
btw President Obama won the most votes of any person in US history.
9
Thanks a lot for voting for Trump! Those of you who voted for Bernie over Hillary gave us Trump! Who has done everything possible to dismantle the ACÁ! Not perfect, but it’s better than nothing! Yes, we need universal healthcare desperately!
7
@bluez The "terrible blow" of the tax for not having insurance would have been $695.
Your previous insurance costing $290 per month was almost certainly junk insurance. Did it have a lifetime cap?
Imagine needing treatment for cancer and halfway through you get a notice from your insurance company that you've reached your lifetime cap so they won't be paying anything more for your treatment, now it's all on you. Any idea how high the bill would be?
Or, after the first year of you needing a lot of medical care they raise your premiums by 1000%. Which before the ACA they could do.
11
Anyone who thinks that Medicare for all, or some version thereof, doesn't have wheels is delusional.
Folks aren't stupid. They're not buying insurance because premiums are too high, and even with insurance, out-of-pocket costs are too high. They're taking an educated gamble: I'll scrimp on health care so that I can otherwise enjoy life, and if I lose the bet, I'll declare bankruptcy. Most folks win that bet, but too many lose.
This is no way to run a country.
You either believe that health care is a human right in a country as rich as ours or you do not. It, really, is that simple. Everyone needs medical care. No one needs a college education. Most folks, I think, understand that, regardless of political stripe.
The D's would do well to prioritize and focus on universal health care. Once we got it, no one would ever suggest going back--kind of like when we got Medicare back in the 1960s.
Please, Democrats: Don't blow this by promising to forgive student loans and institute free tuition and have everyone driving electric cars within five years and shut down all fossil fuel plants and rename the White House the People's House or whatever the issue du jour might be. That "stuff" won't fly. Affordable medical care will. It's beyond time. Quit screwing around and do it, even if it means acknowledging that the Affordable Care Act was a political compromise that would make most right-thinking folks vomit.
11
@August West
Everyone needs post-high school education if you want an educated voter base.
Student loan debt is significantly easier to implement legislatively than tackling healthcare and insurance.
You don't have to implement tort reform or figure out what to pay doctors, pharma or insurance companies to fix education. You do need to do that for healthcare reform.
1
You’re telling me that there are “less people are in poverty” at the same time housing (rents especially), health care, car insurance, and education all drastically outpaced inflation?
This ivory tower ignorance concerning the daily lives of the working class, in place of an honest assessment of how we’re getting screwed by the banks, landlords, and insurance companies, is why nobody out here in Michigan believes in the NYT or Democrats.
8
NYT finds a silver lining for Trump’s economy.
2
Not having health insurance is living in poverty. Please be accurate in your reporting.
15
I am economically stable, but because a friend of mine who had worked on Wall Street was diagnosed with Cancer and went bankrupt because the insurance was inadequate, I have made similar plans; what can you hold on to if you have a health crisis eating through savings and retirement? Almost nothing.
Employment numbers are a joke. If you do not have the protection of health insurance you live in constant fear and these new century jobs, for the most part, have no benefits. Policies for small businesses are insufficient.
Healthcare should be a human right, not a corporation’s right to determine life or death.
25
This is really disgrace. There is no good reason why this country has not made national healthcare for ALL a moral imperative. I know people with good jobs and insurance who still require fundraising to afford their or a family member's treatment. There's no excuse other than sheer greed. Why do we put up with this? Every other developed nation has health care for everyone, whether they are homeless or wealthy. Americans should be ashamed because this is not a democracy anymore.
156
@atb
This government and society ignore moral imperatives all the time. 'No excuse other than sheer greed', or at least extreme self-servitude, could explain 2/3 of Trump Administration policies. No high marks for the two major parties, either.
Money has completely corrupted the political system. Private interests have captured most of the government agencies that actually worked for regular people. All of those lesions and skin conditions? They're the outward symptoms of a body politic on life support.
Meanwhile the president speaks of 'winning,' and 40% of the electorate has bought in. We won't cure these symptoms without treating the whole patient.
14
@omartraore
Ten years ago, I moved as far away as I could from D.C., having lost a battle to make prescription drugs safer. A close family died due to a pharmaceutical company’s decision to hide the side effects from a drug. I don’t even like to visit that area anymore.
5
I guess it depends on how you define poverty! When people are one doctor's visit or illness away from bankruptcy, I call that poverty. What a misleading headline! Seems to be a trend.
9
"Fewer Americans are living in poverty".....says the very first sentence.
However, missing from the article are the absurdly low parameters that define "poverty" in America:
One person household....................$13,064 or less
Two person household....................$16,815 or less
Three person household.................$19,642 or less
Four person household...................$25,900 or less
So, to all you singles bringing home a whopping $14,000/year...and all you married couples bringing in a combined $17,000/ year....and even you 'married with two kids' families bringing in $26,000/year:
Congratulations!
You have all escaped poverty and are living the American dream!
18
Right, John, and those figures don't include local taxes, health care (if any), rent, car payments, utilities, food, day care, etc.
6
mcconnell was clear last week, “Affordable health for Americans is socialism” and Republicans must unite to prevent.
7
What happened to Trump’s promise of “cheaper and better health insurance with more people covered”? Does Trump care about this? I doubt it.
11
“The way they are doing this seems clearly designed to throw people off this program,” said Eliot Fishman.
Right. This is actual plan Republicans had in all those years they said they wanted to replace the ACA with something better.
7
It is simple math. Why get health insurance if you have no or little assets? You get sick you let the government pay the bills via medicaid. That is part of the reason the savings rate is abysmally low in the US. If you save the government or private collectors seizes your money to cover astronomical and inflated hospital medical bills
7
@cb
Unfortunately, many people don’t qualify for Medicaid. That’s how they end up in bankruptcy court.
5
Wow, talk about burying good news into a negative-spin article, and turning small changes into big ones. As one who's obtained health insurance on the market myself, I've watched my premiums go from $350/mo to $1650 a month, all this since Obamacare became the Way of the Land. What's to like? Wages are up, unemployment is way down, and everyone interested can apparently obtain employment. Maybe those that have to obtain health insurance don't want to. If you're relatively healthy, why spend all that money to support insurance companies, government bureaucracies, and the medical industry. As with life, we all have choices to make.
10
I saw my premium went from 100$ to 600$ before Obamacare, clearly trend was there way before. It is not so much fault of Obamacare, as much as 'market-based, employer-based system that's why Dems propose Medicare for all. Yes you can find the employment , but what kind of? The median of income didn't move much meaning that all jobs were low paid and that in time when economy booming. What happens when recession come. low-paid people could not save for rainy day, security net is disrupted and insurance are not affordable. Add to that deficit, and the picture is pretty grim for the booming economy.
5
@DJOHN "If you're relatively healthy" there's a good chance that sooner or later you won't be so healthy. Before the ACA if you didn't have insurance and you developed an issue insurance companies would exclude that from coverage. Or if you had coverage would raise the rate through the roof as soon as the new plan year started.
3
@Jack Toner
The latter still happens under the ACA.
Besides, if you're healthy it's infinitely cheaper to continue to stay that way by investing more of your budget in healthy food and physical exercise than to buy a catastrophic insurance plan.
1
Why isn’t Nancy/the House working overtime with all the inquiries and investigations we need? The GOP would have dragged Trump and his cohorts in front of house like they did Hillary. We waited two years for a lame Mueller report.
WHY aren’t the kid gloves off yet? Mind boggling.
3
@HowMuchIsEnough? Hillary played by the rules and appeared before seemingly endless Congressional committees. Trump and his minions flout the rules. So now we're waiting for the courts to force them to follow the rules but with all the right-wing judges now that may be futile.
Impeachable stuff? For sure but the Senate Republicans would not convict so he would still be president after impeachment and might actually be strengthened politically.
Meanwhile, there's other folks complaining that all the Democratic House does is investigate Trump. Not even remotely true, the House has already passed a number of important bills and now they're getting ready to tackle drug costs. But many folks pay very little attention.
"Taking off the gloves"might make you feel good but what would it accomplish? A lawless president backed up by a Senate majority can only be dealt with by the voters. That's just the way it is.
Is your negativity helping? Not in any way that
i can see. Use your passion to take action. Choose a candidate and work for that candidate or just work for the Democratic party. We need to make sure folks are registered to vote. The Republicans are working overtime to make it harder to voter.
Stop whining and start working!
3
Median HOUSEHOLD income.... yeah -- with two wage earners per household? How much from wages? How much from investments? Which age groups? which states? which metropolitan areas? Inquiring minds... need more info.
1
67% of bankruptcies are tied directly to medical issues and 530,000 people file each year due to health care expenses.
Most Americans are one health event away from bankruptcy.
The system is beyond broken and needs to be resuscitated.
10
@AACNY
According to researchers of a new study in the American Public Journal of Health (APJH), the “financial toll of illness on American families” has perhaps gone far beyond the one-off anecdotes, such as the Nobel laureate who had to sell his medal to pay for medical bills, or 250,000 GoFundMe medical campaigns last year alone.
When it comes to bankruptcy, the study cited court records of bankruptcy filers from 2013 to 2016, with the end result showing that 66.5 percent were tied to medical issues. In other words, they couldn’t pay their medical bills, either because they were too expensive to begin with, or they had to take time off of work and were not getting paid.
The research also noted that 58.5 percent of bankruptcies were caused specifically by medical bills, while 44.3 percent were caused in part by income loss due to illness.
The fact that 530,000 families are resorting to bankruptcy each year because of medical bills is not likely in the national interest
5
It's odd that there are conflicting reports. It looks to me that both the number of uninsured and percentage dropped from 2017 based on the census bureau's report found here:
https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-264.html
"In 2017, 8.8 percent of people, or 28.5 million, did not have health insurance at any point during the year as measured by the CPS ASEC. The uninsured rate and number of uninsured in 2017 were not statistically different from 2016 (8.8 percent or 28.1 million)."
True journalism would have found this and dug into the two reports' discrepancies.
2
The headline could have easily have been 'Poverty line measure holdover masks true poverty rates.'
Costs for housing, transportation, health care and telecommunications have steadily increased, and a 55 year-old measure that uses food costs as the basis for monthly income estimates is a political hot potato that has avoided public scrutiny (as have the gross inequalities in health insurance coverage by race and ethnicity).
Much easier to blame the victims of an economy that works for the top 10%, where almost half of American households could not afford a $400 unforeseen household expense.
Perhaps the bigger problem is that national-level numbers can't capture either the depth or the experiences of those in poverty, which makes it easier for the president and Congress to brag about low unemployment rates (without explaining why that doesn't translate into better-off households).
9
Income reflects the value of one’s labor to their employer. If they perform a job, accept a paycheck then return to that job day after day with the employer’s acceptance, the matching of labor and capital is correct. The reason(s) they return doesn’t matter. The cost of living, the hypothetical poverty line, individual wants, artificial constructs like the “middle class” are not part of that equation. Too much of our psyche is wrapped around a relatively brief period in human history, the postwar era. Such a period was an anomaly unlikely to ever appear again. We should be grateful it lasted as long as it did.
2
@From Where I Sit "the matching of labor and capital is correct." Sez you! With strong unions workers were able to get a decent share, without they get exploited. Employers don't pay workers the value of their labor, they pay as little as possible.
5
@Jack Toner
And if the worker returns to that job, the wage is appropriate. Unions create an artificial wage situation based on extortion.
2
"Historically, health insurance coverage has tended to increase when the economy grows, since most Americans get health plans through employers. Indeed, before 2018, the uninsured rate had not risen in any year since 2008."
Sounds like under Trump, most of the new jobs aren't providing health plan coverage.
11
@Barry Williams Why should employers be on the hook to provide health coverage? Why should people depend on a job to have health coverage? It makes no sense. Americans should ALL have access to health care and they shouldn't have to go into debt to have it. Enough already! Let's be like every other developed nation and give all Americans health care. I'm HAPPY to pay more in taxes for this moral imperative.
8
@atb Employers are not on the hook. Tax rules make it attractive for them to offer insurance: they get to deduct the cost from their profit and so pay less in taxes but employees are not taxed on the value of the insurance they receive.
Taxpayers as a group are subsidizing employer-provided insurance. I'm not objecting as a taxpayer, I want everybody covered but there's no good reason to tie insurance to employment.
Remove the tax subsidy and watch employer-provided insurance go away.
3
@atb Just saying, one of the hits against universal health care and getting rid of private insurance is that supposedly so many people love their employer-provided health plans. My comment alludes to a problem if, with a so-called great economy, and all the jobs Trump claims to be creating (it ain't him), with the huge tax break all these companies are getting, why aren't they providing those wonderful health plans to their new employees?
2
Most families are one medical event away from bankruptcy.
39
My understanding is the “unaffordable health care act “resulted in very large premium increases each year in the marketplace.
Without an illustration of how this effected budgets of American households working for benefits for themselves and their families and an intelligent survey of those opting out... even with the penalty is unethical reporting.
5
@Marie Walsh
Your understanding is incorrect. Healthcare insurance premiums increased every year since the 1980’s except for 1993 when HillaryCare was on the table in a Democrat controlled Congrease with President Clinton’s support.
2014-2017 premium increases were slowing but not by much, 2018 saw the slowing end and the increases turned upwards again.
Thank the Republic controlled Congrease and Individual-1 for that.
4
@Blank So true but Americans memories are so short.
Saw this in action during the 2016 campaign. At one of the first media events, not a debate, some other dang thing, the TV guy asked Clinton about the terrible rising premiums under Obamacare. I thought she should have pointed out that premiums were rising before Obamacare and then compared the rates of increase.
She didn't do this. I assume she felt that it wouldn't work, folks don't even care about very recent history. Sad thing is, she might have been correct in that assessment.
2
@AACNY
False. The ObamaCare subsidies are SUBSIDIES for low income Americans that offset the cost of healthcare insurance.
The rate of premium INCREASES slowed every year since ObamaCare was passed EXCEPT FOR 2018/2019.
1
It seems so obvious, but why hasn't the government started to change what it counts as "jobs" when assessing the health of the economy? Part-time, private contractor, and low-wage jobs are not good for the economy. Because of the lack of health insurance and 401Ks, most Americans are one health crisis away from financial ruin.
I'm not sure who's responsible in counting the number of jobs in America each month, but that system desperately needs a makeover.
9
When income increases under a good economy, those qualified for Medicaid decreases.
The same reason there are 6 million fewer people on food stamps than three years ago.
6
It could decrease because you change criteria for qualification, without any changes in people's income. That's probably could explain the drop
4
@Dr. John
Thanks Obama
Here’s some background and recent data regarding the SNAP program.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplemental_Nutrition_Assistance_Program#Participants
Real Americans should ask Individual-1’s supporters why they want Americans to starve to death.
2
"Note: Data before and after 2013 can’t be directly compared because of changes to how the government collects the information."
Please elaborate on this - because these types of changes and the similar ones before them tell the real story. The government changes the poverty threshold as it sees fit, allowing them to artificially lower the figures they report. It's happened many times, so much so that today's poverty line is well below what many would consider absolute poverty. It certainly isn't enough to afford housing in a region of the country with a strong economy; just read the comments for examples of that. So why is that figure accepted, and who decides that it is?
Why does this happen, and who benefits?
5
The Democrats better hammer away at our slipping access to affordable healthcare, thanks to Trump and Moscow Mitch.
Worked in 2018, it'll work in 2020.
Also, probably mention total incompetence, no achievements (except massive redistribution of wealth upwards), and the corruption (obstruction of justice, refusal to respond to Congreesional subpoenas).
That ought to do it for the majority.
Depending, of course, on the nominee.
5
For better or worse, true freedom allows both success and failure to occur. The Dem platform which has veered hard left these last two election cycles will never succeed beyond the coasts because even the poor know that freedom once taken is never regained. Growing up, my parents could barely afford to keep a roof over our heads much less send me to college. So I didn’t belong there. Period. Neither my boss, my neighbors or Jeff Bezos owes me anything.
3
@From Where I Sit Ah yes, the freedom to not be able to afford needed medical care. So precious!
I have no idea if you "belonged" in college, as in, whether you had the intellectual capacity to benefit and it would have enabled you to better utilize your innate capabilities.
To me, the fact that your parents were poor should have nothing to do with it.
In Europe they've figured out how to make sure everyone gets the medical care they need and every student with the intellectual capacity can attend college.
So I guess you'll tell us they aren't free. Have you ever actually thought about this? Where would we find their lack of freedom? Just because they pay somewhat higher taxes?
Hmm. Everyone gets the medical care they need and all students can go as far as their abilities and hard work will take them. But folks pay ten or twenty percent more in taxes. And that makes them unfree?!?
Weird!
BTW students in France do indeed work very hard at school or they don't get into a university.
2
You want to see Healthcare in U.S. decline, socialize the the system. The U.S. should be focusing on healthy living styles. We just got a huge settlement for opiod epidemic. What about the epidemic of over eating, drinking, smoking, eating out, sedentary life style, and ingesting all kinds of drugs, supplements, and vaping? We have more obesity than ever. Just look around you and count the number of obese people. It is astonishing!!!
States subsidize indigent care. For those that get caught in between, I wonder how many think about the expensive trip they took, professional games they attend, and the wasted money spent on the Lottery?
3
@John
Healthy Lifestyles? That sounds like Michelle Obama's platform and we know how republicans felt about that. She championed more nutritious choices in schools, as well as fewer sugary drinks in vending machines. The libertarians were almost foaming at their mouths.
4
@John So folks in Europe must be way more unhealthy than here with all that dread Socialized Medicine.
But they're not.
Perhaps some time you might put your preconceptions aside and actually look at the world. It is more work but it's really worth it!
3
Totally Unbelievable--Homelessness is Rising to Extremes--So did they fall off the Poverty Count because that's the only way Poverty has decreased. Someone needs to get out and walk around major cities like LA--no way poverty on downswing
16
Further good news. First time in U.S. history most new working-age hires are people of color.
1
@clarity007
Minimum wage jobs with no benefits and even less opportunity to advance makes for a controllable labor force.
6
If this means that fewer people are on getting Obamacare subsidies or are on Medicaid, meaning fewer people are on the public dole, I view this as a positive.
6
@AACNY As opposed to republicans, who measure success by how many more companies are bribed to stay in-state by taxpayer funds?
8
@AACNY
Defenselessness Contractors are the largest recipients of Federal funds by a country mile.
2
@Dr. Girl
No, they measure success in terms of number of dead poor people.
1
Yet another example of the human wrecking ball we call trump, reducing a program to a pile of rubble, with no strategy, plan or intention of building something as good as or better.
8
I'll tell you who is lacking health insurance. The millions of people who were buying perfectly good health insurance policies that they decided was sufficient for their needs and then lost it to Barack Obama who called all these plans "junk plans."
So the 60 year old couple that was paying $5000 a year for premiums with a $6000 deductible now find themselves paying $14000 a year in premiums with a $10,000 deductible..making their "Affordable Healthcare" unaffordable.
Who benefitted? The poor saps making nothing who now get free insurance while my brothers and sisters have to sell their homes in order to buy health insurance that they were promised would cost them $2500 less a year in premiums...by THE DEMOCRAT PARTY.
If you're poor or near poor....the world is full of subsidies...yet over 10,000,000 of these people eligible to receive free ObamaCare still don't buy it because it means they have to pay a copay when they see a doctor vs. just showing up at the ER.
And we wonder why my privately provided health insurance is 32.5% higher than it was just 6 years ago?
8
@Erica Smythe
"So the 60 year old couple that was paying $5000 a year for premiums with a $6000 deductible now find themselves paying $14000 a year in premiums with a $10,000 deductible..making their "Affordable Healthcare" unaffordable."
This is the sabotage that the writers speak of. Some conservative states refused to implement the ACA or accept the money for Medicaid in order to sabotage it. It caused uneven results. My insurance is fine. You should do more investigating!
5
@Erica Smythe
Junk insurance policies cost ALL Americans thousands of dollars a year in higher premiums.
Freeloaders lose, REAL AMERICANS WIN.
Trump wants nothing more than to systematically eliminate the underclass; he's chosen denial of affordable health care as his principal tool to execute his devious plan. The rise in the number of Americans lacking health insurance is empirical evidence that Trump's effort is successful. He must be ecstatic.
4
This country can do better- despite some reservations about OC it delivered far more than any republican’s have every delivered. If you trust this current president with your health care then call me: I have a great bridge to sell to you.
5
Where is the data supporting the assertions about the fraction of citizens living in poverty? Median household income neither supports nor refutes those claims. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States for some information on this.
4
If you're uninsured, you're poor or will be very soon. Especially if you're retirement age.
6
Before ACA, NYC had Family Health Plus. It was basically Medicaid for folks who make too much to qualify. It was $450 per month for a family, and most doctors accepted it. That has been replaced by Obamacare, where the cheapest family plan, the bronze plan, is $1200 per month with an incredulous $8,0000 deductible. That means that policy holder is paying for all their health at the cash price until they hit 8k in any calendar year. Then they are “covered”. That’s not insurance. That’s that policy holder paying for someone else’s healthcare. It is a mortgage sized payment for insurance you’ll never use. In other words, useless. Not to mention, many docs don’t even accept it. This is the plan that was sold to us by Democrats, and what they are defending so vociferously. What is laughable is they deem “healthcare” a winning issue for them. What’s worse is they said “if you like your doctor/insurance, you can keep it”. Then millions got thrown off their insurance they liked and could afford. Democrats should never be trusted again on healthcare. They lied through their teeth and sold us a redistribution scheme, like snake oil salesmen. What’s even more laughable is that after the country went for Obamacare, here we are 10 years later and they claim healthcare is an issue. More lies. More incompetence. Enough is enough.
8
@Sports Medicine "Obamacare" is actually a Republican policy and the only thing Republicans would accept. As you may recall, Republicans shut down at the thought of coming to the table and coming up with a reasonable, moral plan for ALL Americans. That continues today. Republican top priority is keeping insurance companies in business, NOT keeping Americans healthy. Obama was hamstrung but at least it was something. Universal healthcare is the only way. Why are Republicans so opposed to every American having real access to healthcare and not going broke over it??
5
@atb The problem with Obamacare is that the subsidies for those who declare their income low are too generous, results in people paying premiums less than their phone or cable bill. I have a nephew in grad school who pays twenty dollars a month for a policy in NY. The curve needs to be flattened out so all have skin in the game. Do poor people need help with the cost of premiums, absolutely, but they should not get a policy for essentially free.
3
@AACNY
False. ObamaCare was FULLY FUNDED by a 4.3% fee imposed on medical devices manufacturers and by treating healthcare insurance premiums as Regular Income for Tax purposes.
You’re lying OR misinformed.
This is great news. Removing the financial penalty for refusing to buy an insurance policy that is expensive, has high deductibles, and which many doctors do not even accept. "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor" was the biggest lie if all time. Democrats must pay a political price for this big lie by Barack Obama. He knew it was false.
3
@johnny
98% of Americans did keep their Doctors.
btw 97% of Americans also kept the healthcare insurance plans.
2
That is a deceptive figure, for many reasons.
Not everyone had health insurance before or after the ACA.
Of the people that had insurance, only a small number use the healthcare system intensively because they are seriously ill. For a tiny percentage of people it matters a lot if they lose their network of doctors. To someone that wasn't ill in the first place, they may not even know they lost their network, and it doesn't matter to them.
1
1. How is poverty being defined? I'm guessing the rewriting of rational standards that the GOP has got up to since 1980 makes a lot of poor folks not poor on paper.
2. If you are not poor you have health insurance. Lacking health insurance when you want it is the number one indicator of poverty as far as I am concerned.
4
@magicisnotreal We all deserve better. The insurance and pharmaceutical companies get richer while innocent people die.
2
Are there two Americas? One is occupied by a leisure class whose wealth provides an antidote to life's 'Jack-in-a-box' premature deaths - for lack of financial access to adequate healthcare.
The second larger demographic are the citizens of a story-book nation whose idealism trumps its reality. In this greater nation are people distracted by sports, entertainment and religion - whether theistic or invented in 20th century cults to compete for the lucre that replaced traditional theism.
Both Americas enjoy a symbiotic relationship where class replaces race and education leads to a 'middle class'. But all bets are off if the First Nation residents fail to take care of their brothers and sisters by providing what lesser nations offer in universal healthcare.
A great nation is defined by how it treats its citizens. Healthcare is a human right. A rich nation that continues to fund a war economy, one that produces excess implements and munitions of war, has sold-out its working class, those that cannot afford adequate health insurance, in favor of a nihilist state.
10
@Bob Aceti
amen brother!
1
@Bob Aceti wow, this is a very cogent and articulate description of America! And as MLK described the three great evils confronting this country :
(poverty,racism,militarism),
your thesis in the third paragraph highlights the key to poverty- healthcare. It’s the lock on the prison door of poverty. You’ve covered all the bases here, Bob. Bravo!
it is scary to think that some people think that its ok for people not to have health insurance
16
@Robin
Since the days of Harry Truman, in order to maintain the "status quo", the industry and Republicans as a whole have been preaching this idea of self reliance within a topic and a system that does not apply. Of course, the politicians have their "gold plated" medical plan funded by the taxpayer.
People have car insurance, yet, many will never have to use it. EVERYONE will ultimately need healthcare in their lives and every other industrialized nation confirmed that the "for profit" system is the LEAST effective and most costly way of implementing a healthcare system, especially if the ultimate goal is that all of their citizens, whether illness OR accident, are entitled to securing healthcare and not have to worry about it during their lives.
Still, some Americans buy into the bogus notion of "if you can't afford it there is something wrong with you". Of course, what they fail to realize is even with health coverage, should they incur a chronic or debilitating illness and/or loss of job that provides that coverage, they are one step away from bankruptcy, one of the 530,000 of Americans that claim it every year because they can't pay the medical bills.
7
After reading many comments all re: Insurance
How about changing the Health Care system in general. We need walk-in clinics like they have in Canada. Maybe they can be staffed by rotating Medical Residents in and out. They get training and credit. People can pay on a sliding scale.
Even $1.00. That keeps the ER free for real emergencies.
Institute a SIN tax on alcohol. Use that to help pay for healthcare. There r obvious ways to rethink healthcare delivery. Just thinking Insurance first hasn’t worked!
10
I lived and worked in the US for about 30 years, and now 32 years in Norway. I can assure all Americans that public healthcare in Norway works, and in many ways, is far superior to what is available in the US. Our taxes aren't that much more to cover the costs. A doctor's visit (most are located right in your neighborhood) is capped at $25. Recently I had an operation that I understand costs about $30,000 in the US. It was free here, brand new hospital, incredible surgeons and infrastructure, free follow-up and physical therapy, all drugs free. Per person our medical costs in Norway are less than half what they are in the US, and life expectancy is five years longer here than in the US.
All that said, I was impressed with Medicare in the US regarding the help my parents received in their last years.
22
Why do we need health insurance? Trump promised us he'd take good care of us. He said he'd give us the best care in the world, the best plans, the best of everything, and make it so affordable.
Probably best to change that to funeral insurance.
15
I am never confident in poverty reduction figures. Minimum poverty thresholds seem to have been set by the government in 1978, and since then, the numbers have only been increased to match inflation as measured by the government. (Which goes to show you how much our representatives are advocating for poor people.)
When the threshold was set in 1978, I do not know if these numbers were enough for anyone to get by in the first place. Today they seem extremely skimpy, with no adjustment by region of the country.
Here's an example using my life as a basis. Two people, under age 65, no children, one household. Last year, according to the poverty threshold table, we should have been able to squeak by on $16,815 - $1,401/month/couple, or $700/month/person. We rent.
The median rent in California, where we live, is $2,518. Undoable.
So we're moving to the cheapest state in the country, West Virginia.
Median rent there is $888. We'll spend $10,656 annually in housing alone, leaving $256/month per person to cover all food, clothing, utilities, transportation costs, and healthcare.
This is a quick and unnuanced evaluation, yes. But it does illustrate this: making even $20K more than the poverty line (for a single person, that number will be $33,064) is not going to make you feel like you are thriving in America. And if your employer does not give you health insurance, you likely won't have any.
13
Federal poverty standards are nonsensical in New York. Someone who made just a tad over the official "poverty line" would either be living on public benefits like SNAP and subsidized housing or homeless in NYC. And you'd need to make even more to reach a lower-middle class or working class lifestyle. So telling me more people are above the "poverty line" doesn't really tell me whether people are making it economically.
9
In a recent article in the Washington Post, because Jeff Bezos was taken to task about Amazons "non-payment" of taxes, the author of the article attempted to debunk a "peer reviewed" study that Bernie Sanders quoted that, because of unpaid medical bills, "every year", 500, 000 Americans declare bankruptcy.
Ultimately, the WP was correct. Sanders "underestimated" the number, it was actually 530,000!
14
@Deus
530,000 in a population of 327 million is lower than the Canadian rate of 126,000 for a population of 37 million in Canada. It's 3 times smaller, actually.
1
@Viv. What are you saying, that it’s ok that 530,000 people went bankrupt due to medical bills, because some countries are worse?
2
The problem here is half of the country is fighting the other half so nobody wins. The half with good employer based care wants no change while the half that is self insured is left to fend for themselves. To solve this everyone has to open up and give a little.
10
This article does not give specifics "The drop, despite a strong economy, was the first since 2014 and at least partly caused by efforts to weaken the Affordable Care Act." This is speculation as far as I'm concerned. There are no facts backing up this statement. Typical. IMO, the reason for the decline is because 1)The "AFFORDABLE" Care Act is not affordable. Health insurance rates have increased because of it. What's the point of having insurance if you never get to use it due to high deductibles and co-pays. 2)Trump did the right thing by removing the mandate. People should not be penalized for choosing to not pay for health insurance.
3
@AMPSKI, in a perfect world no one gets sick, but alas the world is not perfect. If you do get sick and have chosen not to have health insurance I suggest you drive over the Ambassador bridge to Ontario and really learn what sensible healthcare is like.
3
It should cheer Republican hearts to hear that more Americans do not have health insurance. But they will not rest, of course, until we are all without it.
5
After decades of insuring myself, I finally had to use my health insurance for more than just flu and yearly check ups. Two years before the ACA arrived, I was diagnosed with a chronic illness and prescribed costly medications. My insurance company of 25 years tried to drop me in every way they could legally get away with. It was a frightening nightmare that cost me tens of thousands of dollars in uncovered bills.
Enter Obama Care. Yes, I had a bit higher premiums and a hefty deductible, but I was covered. After I met my deductible I was covered for everything. I would never have to worry about losing my home and business because of medical bills. That alone, helped get me back on my feet.
Sadly, ever since the GOP and Trump started eating away at the ACA, it has been getting more expensive and less functional. The ironic part is, the young and healthy people who dropped their insurance will pay the biggest price in the end. It's more costly in tax dollars to support homeless folk in ERs than buying into healthcare for all. Plus, decades from now when they are sick, Donald Trump the 3rd will just kick them to the curb.
31
the issue is not only access... but the ridiculous costs associated with it. the complete lack of transparency on insurance and billing costs. I will give anyone 100K if they can take their EOB and reconcile it against their actual bill for a hospital stay and subsequent treatments. when i watched cspan's coverage of drug manufacturers testimony before congress... it was literally a joke when the blamed the middle man as the reason for cost increases... and when asked if they eliminated the middleman... the subsequent savings could be passed to the consumer... they all said... well umm... no.
in the end access, and pre-existing conditions are important... the ridiculous cost are a bigger problem. the fact your elected officials have no more power to make changes should scare everyone in this country...
8
Probably the poverty levels are lower because they are dying or being deported. I'm not sure where those statistics are coming from and how accurate they are. Don't look at America with Trump-colored glasses. People are not earning livable incomes and work has dwindled. Farmers are the latest to suffer. All of Trump's damage will eventually catch up with those who still think he's doing a great job.
9
It’s not just that the number of uninsured people is going up. From my own experience, I find that the level of coverage at the same price has also deteriorated in the past couple of years.
13
I went on and off 3 years without health insurance. All the years we saved and went with out for retirement would have been significantly impacted by what I choose to call “fake insurance. “ Thank god my husband had VA. During that time I ended up with medical condition but after lots of help from chiropractor and daughter (nurse) worked my way through it. And didn’t have to bankroll insurance company to get there. I bet a lot out there like me. Couldn’t wait to come of age for Medicare.
9
Americans will continue to slide into poverty unless they stop voting for a party our of fear for another and start voting to use the wealth that this country generates for their own good. Look at what we’ve sunk into the military alone. And still nobody in the world is afraid of us because of it. Go figure. Did we learn ANYTHING for the collapse of the Soviet Union? Nope.
6
Would love to retire early to help take care of elderly parents, but too much uncertainty in health insurance market right now.
Thank you Mr Trump!
14
REPUBLICANISM defined.
Nationalistic militancy
Blaming the poor for their poverty.
Individualism without social responsibility.
Jail stuffing like no other.
Guns instead of government.
Environmental irresponsibility.
What have I left out?
Callous Christian self-righteousness.
For a long time I have thought that we will not get out from this republicanism UNLESS we TAKE IT TO THE CHRISTIANS. As a disgusted X-Christian Buddhist, I struggle with the anger I feel toward Christians.
Anger, however, at least for initial impact, seems more effective than love - in the short term. And we don't have any time left to change the course of carbon poisoning.
I believe we can PICKET THE CHRISTIANS in love but, obviously, expressing, at least, irritation. I believe the majority Christians are people who want to be "good" by have been led astray by ignorant shepards trying to make a clean hands living patting them on the back. They are the "poor of spirit who know not what they do."
How am I so aware? Well I'm educated and I'm a Buddhist - a far more sophisticated spiritual path than simple Bible worshipping idolatry. I was an especially devout Christian in my youth. That ended with the Vietnam War.
For the lives of our children, PICKET THE CHURCHES OF THE REPUBLICAN WAY.
8
Does this correspond with the administration’s effort for the Census to count only citizens? A lower percentage of people are uninsured if there is a smaller head count. Downside is that (presumably) a larger percentage of uninsured, uncounted residents still have health problems, related individual and public health care expenses, and may expose others to illness. But messaging supersedes their inhumanity.
1
This column inadvertently highlights the fact that almost all discussions about health care -- especially in the political arena -- focus almost exclusively on the availability of insurance. What good is insurance without the availability and access to care itself?
Health care providers are clearly stretched far too thin in this country. A few months back the Albuquerque Journal ran a series on healthcare in New Mexico which noted that the largest provider did not have a single primary care physician accepting new patients. Lest those of you on the coasts think this is just a problem of flyover America's "backwardness", it also noted that in Massachusetts, with the highest ratio of doctors to patients in the country, the average wait time for a new patient to see a primary care doc was fifty-seven days.
Dedicated people, whose primary motivation is patient care, manage to provide what care they can not because of but in spite of the health care system in this country.
Combine the lack of enough people with a health care system predicated on profits for investors, and you clearly have a system designed to fail, if you measure success in terms of people's health rather than corporate profits.
Americans must hold all candidates accountable for developing realistic proposals to increase the overall supply of qualified medical personnel, not merely universal, free access to being put on "hold."
7
@Steve Fankuchen
The fact that a "provider" does not have any primary care physician's accepting new patients does not mean that there aren't any primary care physicians accepting new patients in that location. There can be physicians who won't sign on to the "provider's" terms for reimbursement, so the "provider" does not refer patients to that physician.
2
Yes, Trumpian tactics may be one factor in the decline of the share of Americans with health insurance. But, a bigger factor is that real wages effectively declined in 2018 (and continue to do so). According to PayScale data, when adjusted for cost of living increases, real wages declined 1.3% since the end of 2017.
People can't afford to purchase health insurance. Period. Full. Stop.
The so-called *Affordable* Care Act, passed when a Democrat was president, is no such thing!
7
@Micki
Obamacare was a Democrat idea, and a Democrat law, rammed down our throats by all Democrats.
Keep that in mind next time you hear a Democrat speak of “fixing” healthcare.
1
"Fewer Americans Live in Poverty, but More Lack Health Insurance."
Same thing, isn't it? Living in poverty and lacking health insurance? Health care in America is ruinously expensive. Most Americans cannot afford a single unexpected $400 health care bill. Half of Americans have saved little or nothing for retirement including for retirement health care. As folks grow older, their health care costs go up. Any measure of poverty that like this one does not also account for the ability to pay for health care is not a true measure of poverty. The ACA was a step in the right direction. Tens of millions who did not have health insurance were able to buy it. More must be done. A national public option would be a good obvious next step. The Trump Republican sabotage of the ACA is making millions of Americans both sicker and poorer. Their plan to go after Social Security and Medicare will make millions of Americans sicker and poorer, too.
22
Has the Trump administration changed the way poverty levels are determined? If memory serves there was a move afoot to change the CPI component so that the poverty level would decline due to a reduction in what is considered poverty rather than actual improvements in income.
6
"Fewer Americans are living in poverty but, for the first time in years, more of them lack health insurance."
The poverty level in this county varies, depending on how many are in one household. For example, a single person to be at poverty level would have an income of $12,490 while a household of 6 would be considered at the poverty level if their income was $34,590 per the 2019 Federal Poverty Guidelines.
What this article DOESN'T state is how much those Americans who are now not considered to be in poverty are earning a year.
That single individual could be making $13,000 a year but not considered to be in poverty. A household of 6 could be making $35,000 but also not be considered to be in poverty.
There is a HUGE difference and gap between poverty level income and making a LIVING and DECENT wage so one COULD afford "luxuries" like heath insurance and nutritious food other than fast food.
All this article addresses are those number of folks who do not have health insurance but are not living in poverty.
Perhaps the questions or issues to ask and look at are why Americans are not buying health insurance and why is the poverty levels so low to begin with?
It seems when the bar is set so low to begin with in which so many will never be able to step up or over because inflation on EVERYTHING is out of control coupled with insurance premiums, articles such as this paint a very distorted picture of what's really going on in America.
13
Yet another critical item associated with the wellbeing-types, levels and qualities- of America’s diverse, divided Peoples, to be added to the personal unaccountability of the range of elected and selected policymakers at all levels. Everywhere. All around.
Enabled by all too many of US in our toxic WE-THEY violating culture.
Enabled by infectious complacency and complicity by all too many.
Enabled by ordinary folk choosing to BE willfully blind about what IS, that should not...
Enabled by active willful deafness to the experienced existential pains-physical, anomic, psychological, spiritual, social, economic- engaged in by all too many.
Enabled by willful metastatic indifference chosen by family members, neighbors, friends, strangers as well as others.
Enabled by willful silence when targeted, deafening outrage is needed.
Just as no word can adequately represent what it was created to explain, describe, answer, question, explore, no number/ statistic can adequately represent a person with a name, whose State of health and wellbeing is being challenged for daily coping, adapting and functioning in a range of roles in a range of contexts, situations, networks and environments. Insured. Adequately as well as not. Underinsured. Uninsured. And surely not when elected members of the Federal government have the perk of a very special health insurance. Health and wellbeing are basic human rights, whose negation and violation are not to be tolerated!
1
'“You’re seeing improvements in employment outcomes for people with disabilities. You’re seeing improvements in employment outcomes for the formerly incarcerated,” Mr. Strain said. “These workers who are potentially more vulnerable, you’re seeing the recovery reach them.”'
Neither of those elements of improvement are due to anything Trump or Republicans have done since they have controlled Washington. And a significant portion of wage gains for the lower strata is due to minimum wage laws passed by states. Most of the rest of the improvements in the economy are merely what would have happened anyway given the trajectory Obama left in 2016. There is some boom at the high end and conditional middle class gain from whatever trickling managed to arrive from the tax cut, but all that is being destabilized by Trump's erratic policies and climate change.
"Democrats, however, are likely to highlight evidence that income gains have slowed since President Barack Obama’s final years in office. Median income grew 5.1 percent in 2015 and 3.1 percent in 2016."
And that growth is going down. Do Republican zero-sum policies targeted for the wealthy ultimately degrade median income growth? Sure seems like it, but it's tricky.
2
Lack of health insurance IS eventual poverty.
33
@LS No it is immediate poverty and possibly death. Walk into a doctors office or hospital and tell them you have no insurance and see what level of service you receive.
1
It is good to know Americans are free to choose not to have health insurance and not to have to pay penalty for not having any health insurance. Affordable Health care act is now better because those who could not afford it are no longer penalized. America is great again without the draconian loss of freedom. How much real impact on health care is the result of those not having health insurance would be my question. Also my question would be how much saving was achieved by those who chose not to have health insurance.
I know in the year a decade ago when I was self employed and could not find affordable health insurance, I took extreme care of my health and paid out of pocket for health care, immunizations, checkups etc and it was about 10% of the total cost of annual health insurance premiums and deductibles, I would have paid if I did have health insurance. Of course luckily I did not have catastrophic illness which could have bankrupted me and I would have happily paid for just catastrophic illness insurance or accidental hospitalization but such did not exist and should be available now. So it is wrong to equate health insurance with optimal health care.
4
@Girish Kotwal The way the ACA was supposed to work, if you really couldn't afford it, you should have still been able to get it, mainly via expansion of Medicaid. Lots of red state governors refused to do that. That leaves it as an issue, not of CAN you afford it, but do you WANT to afford it, for many people, because their governor didn't want them to get it for "free" if you deserved it due to your income. It would have cost those states not one red cent.
"...when I was self employed and could not find affordable health insurance, I took extreme care of my health and paid out of pocket for health care, immunizations, checkups etc..."
I think you're relatively unusual. Most people that don't have health insurance (and even some who do) don't take extreme care of their health, and get immunizations, check ups, etc.
"So it is wrong to equate health insurance with optimal health care."
Health insurance is not any kind of health care, optimal or otherwise, just as auto insurance isn't any kind of auto care. A true health care system would ensure that everyone gets a minimum level of care for their health, whatever the mechanism for providing that. Pure capitalism probably cannot provide true health care; it certainly can't without significant taxes to pay for health care for those who can't buy it for themselves, if services rendered are for-profit.
5
Catastrophic plans have always been available, and are SPECIFICALLY mandated by the PPACA. But thanks for being such a cheerleader for leeching off the rest of us.
2
And, what would you have done if you were in a car accident and were severely injured? What do you do as you age and all kinds of illness can occur regardless of how well you take care of yourself? Another short sighted ant ACA comment.
3
Get a job - there are plenty available - and with your new found income buy health insurance, start with the basics and build from there as you make more money. It’s called taking care of business, in this case the business is your life. If you can’t do that it’s your fault, nobody else is to blame. Take care of yourself, don’t count on freebies.
7
@Back Up
Have you ever tried it? On today's wages? Don't be joking.
1
there are plenty of working people who could not afford the health insurance.
@yulia
The 3 C’s - Catastrophic, Charity and Cash. Keep on keeping on!
1
I am skeptical of the Medicare for all concept. There are too many unknowns . There are many more Americans who are satisfied with their present insurance then there are uninsured. We, and the politicians, have no idea of what the disruptions to healthcare may be in transitioning to MfA. Let’s fix Obamacare so it can work optimally, and get the uninsured coveredObamacare is an American answer to affordable insurance, we can look at what other developed countries have and come up with our own system. Also pushing MfA gives the Republicans too much leverage in using the Socialist card against Democrats.... fix Obamacare.
5
@Paul Zloto
Why don't you just forget the labels and look at the actual policy. Other countries did it decades ago, it is just having politicians with the political will to do it, yet, you presently do not because, in order to maintain the "status quo" the politicians have been "bought off" by the healthcare industry. There is nothing to be skeptical about.
12
@Paul Zloto "There are too many unknowns" Look around man, there are many single payer plans in the world. They all work and they all result in better health outcomes at dramatically lower costs than Americans pay with the not insignificant benefit of covering everyone.
4
Hilarious, given that Trump appointed all your bribe-taking bureaucrats.
Lets talk about those of us they do have employer provided health care. I pay around $200 per month, my deductible is $1000. I developed a rash a few weeks ago, made an appointment with my dermatologist office. Could not get an appointment with a doctor so I saw a PA. I paid my $50 co-pay since it was a 'specialist' and the doctors office billed my insurer $248 for an office visit. My insurer paid $115. I was billed for the balance of $113. So my 5 minute office visit and a prescription for cortisone cost me $163 and my prescription coverage did not cover what was prescribed so I paid $58 or full retail to have it filled. The problem is not just insurance it is greed by both insurer and provider.
46
$200 a month in premiums with a $1k deductible is about what Medicare costs. Dunno what you’re complaining about: you’re lucky, these days.
16
@Josh. It is not the provider. It is the Insurance co. I recently ran into similar situation. The Insurer would not cover a specific cortisone type Med. I asked what the cost would be. Answer: $400.00!!
And I pay much more than $200/mo. For Private Insurance.Atnea. Worse than Blue Cross Blue Shield.
5
@Robert Considering 30 years ago my company paid 100% of my health insurance with no copay and a $100 deductible I think people do have a right to complain. At my last job insurance cost me $8000 a year with $50 copays and a high deductible. Medical costs are out of control and the government is doing nothing about it.
15
Is anyone considering all the young that were forced or at least coerced into getting insurance actually thought about it seeing that they take care of themselves and choose to live healthy lifestyles opted out? Makes total sense to me. The insurance to the whole health care dilemma lies in people assuming the personal responsibility to live healthy as best that they can. Removing the self-imposed lifestyle caused ailments leaves plenty of money for the ones that are truly sick. This is not about Trump. It is about you and me actually assuming personal responsibility.
8
In point of fact, anybody capable of making their own health insurance and care decisions is pushing for universal coverage as well as healthier diets and lives.
1
@Rob Wood
You are employing "bogus" Republican and healthcare industry talking points. I know a man who was an Olympic class athlete in excellent shape whom one day while riding his bicycle home from the health club was hit by a car and ultimately sustained such serious injuries, he is now spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
There is no such a thing as a "lease on life" and despite your rhetoric about "personal responsibility", unforeseen accidents happen and even the healthiest people, young and old, can contract chronic illnesses and diseases like cancer.
When it comes to health you aren't in control as much as you "think" you are.
4
@AACNY
Government already is involved in healthcare by regulating which medical procedures, medications, etc. are effective at treating ailments.
The "choice" in healthcare many Americans and insurance companies make is solely based on the cheapest immediate cost. That's not a choice. That's Walmart-level thinking.
While I share the happiness that poverty has gone down, the poverty measure is unrealistically low, is not adjusted for differences in cost of living in different regions (save Alaska and Hawaii - because food costs more there. The origins of the poverty measure is based on the cost of food times 3), and yes for the conservatives does not take account of non-cash supports such as food stamps.
The alternative poverty measure does all of the above. And it has not changed since last year. It is about 13 percent.
So let us not get too happy. We are too wealthy a country to have as a large a population as we do living at or below sustenance level.
9
@carol. So how about changing the rules so Supermarkets can give food away more easily. That would mean a provision against law suits.
Waste is everywhere in this country.
2
Not having health insurance should automatically mean that one lives in poverty. The fact that it does not tells us as much about life in the USA as anyone would need to know.
26
@EBK
One must ask, when tens of millions of Americans are either uninsured or "under" insured sustain a chronic illness, considering the medical expenses forthcoming, how many of them could ultimately enter those levels of poverty that the statistics claim are reducing?
2
More people have jobs, but fewer have health insurance means that many of the jobs that have been created do not have health insurance. We aren't growing the economy, we're growing the profits of business on the backs of lower waged, low benefit workers.
68
But luckily the only sickness they had was being sick of all the winning. And they all had great jobs in the coal mines and steel works. And everyone lived happily ever after because everything King Trump said came true. And every little boy and girl got $400m for Christmas.
14
I’d settle for ‘a small loan of a million dollars”. 💵
1
Fewer Americans with health insurance is one of the paradoxical goals of the GOP.
Their intention to make life more difficult and more miserable for regular working people is proceeding as planned.
Seems cruel and unusual to me.
Meanwhile my friends' group on social media has just crowd-funded a lady's leg amputation from diabetes.
24
@Feminist
"Their intention to make life more difficult and more miserable for regular working people is proceeding as planned."
Keep the vast middle class working two jobs and so exhausted they have no time and no energy to protest the harm Trump is doing to our nation.
13
People who don't want to pay for health insurance are socialist and/or bums. They want to be able to waltz into the ER and get free care at others expense or to just go out beg for money to pay their healthcare bill.
3
They most likely want to pay for health insurance but after stretching their pay to cover housing and food there is not enough left.
@Washwalker....Or...they simply can't afford it !!
I'm sure the GOP is ready to roll out their health plan- right after the 2020 election.
All hat, no cattle.
25
WOW. The headlines indicate a different theme than the article describes.
3
This trend is due to Obama, not Trump. Obamacare reduced the number of insurers in TX to 2 - and the premiums and deductibles are 4X what they were before and coverages are worse. Because of Obama, not Trump.
The biased NYT can't even report this correctly.
10
@greg Overall, premiums were going down under Obama. That is an indisputable fact. For some individuals, however, they may have increased (but not on the whole). This is due to the fact that 1. many did not consult the insurance exchanges that the ACA established 2. people live in states that refused to cooperate with the ACA for political reasons 3. some people had junk insurance plans that were cheap but did not provide adequate coverage.
15
@Chad. But Deductibles went much higher on ACA Policy. FACT. I had to research= read all the descriptions of various ACA insurance policies to help my daughter when she was out of work. And many providers don’t take ACA insurance. ( in liberal cities).
3
Chad, premiums were expected to go up, it was part of the ACA design.
3
It is a favorite pastime to blame The Affordable Care Act for the higher costs of health insurance. Interesting that those who play that game don't hold the insurance companies who are gauging the public responsible for the same.
President Obama and his administration worked to create a more equitable health insurance system. It is "more" equitable, not perfectly so. The GOP and those who support them have presented nothing to improve or replace it, yet they continue to want to gut it.
The idea that any administration could develop and enact the perfect health insurance system is ludicrous at best. We need to work toward improving what we have rather than simply do away with the improvements made and leave us at the total whims of the insurance industry.
There's an old saying "don't throw the baby out with the bath water." Let's work at making the Affordable Care Act better and more affordable for all by containing the power of the insurance industry. Don't ever forget its size and scope and that its sole intention is to make money.
If every one of the critics of the ACA actually read it and came up with one idea to improve it, we could probably move forward into a truly patient focused care system pretty quickly. So, stop whining and finger pointing and do something.
12
Just as expected now that there is no longer a financial penalty imposed if you do not buy something that you didn’t want in the first place.
Just another sensational, but misleading headline from the NYT’s!
13
@Dan Micklos
Wrote same comment basically.
This isn’t tough to unravel.
For people so interested in honesty- you’d think they’d demand less spin in their information sources.
But seems like confirmation bias outweighs desire for facts.
3
@Dan Micklos it's absurd to thank that people don't want health insurance when large numbers of Americans go bankrupt due to medical bills. It's a question of affordability, and making sure that all people contribute to the cost o medical care. Or do you prefer charity care for those unable to py? Or would you simply let them die?
@Dan Micklos: So you and your fellow uninsured will go without health care or pay sticker price when you need it, got it.
Why would anyone vote for a republican or trump after they have tired to take basic medical care away from millions? The US falls further behind with this backward mentality. Voting against your own self interest. I have life-time medical care from my Civil Service job but feel for those at the mercy of the GOP, Greedy Old Party, who wants to get rid of the few protections we have. Vote them all out and continue Obama Care for the people who need it!
7
Some Americans don't have health insurance?
OMG! We're all going to die!
The earth will explode and fall into the sun!
It's the end of everything!
1
@George Orwell: Say that again when you pay higher premiums because those without health insurance use the emergency room for treatment and canot pay their bills. Or when you get infected with a contageous disease by someone who didn't seek treatment because he coudn't afford it.
18
@George Orwell if millions of people go uninsured (or under-insured), those of us who do have insurance are subsidizing those who don't via higher premiums. they're also unnecessarily burdening the emergency care system, which is far more expensive than primary care.
So -- your immensely helpful sarcasm aside -- it kinda does matter.
16
Among the people that Eric Blair despised were those who bellow, those who refuse to read, and those who write alibis for what’s wrong.
I’d say you hit the trifecta.
1
Dear Mr. trump:
Is this your "plan" … the "something beautiful" you said you said you 'had' as 'replacement' for the 'terribles' of 'Obamacare' ?
7
The Republican assault on average Americans continues unabated.
More wealthcare; less healthcare.
"Drop dead, America !"
GOP 2019
Nice GOPeople.
November 3, 2020
70
@Socrates
As Wilbur Ross advised, just go to the bank and take out a loan....
1
Make America SICK AGAIN
6
The problem is very simple.
Our US based health insurance costs $2374 a month to protect 2 people.
We have a profitable international business, however having to earn $21 an hour pretax … just to pay US premiums ….. is a darned bitter pill to swallow. If we did not have the resources and health to carry on, our own descent into poverty would be swift ….
THAT is the problem that needs to be solved in the USA, and the GOP is doing exactly nothing to solve it. In fact, they are pouring gasoline on the problem whilst their Fearless Leader waves matches and flicks them at the tinderbox of real issues.
11
These numbers are basically pointless considering how many people can't afford to pay medical bills even if they have insurance.
I don't want my insurance connected to my employment! My husband and I financially secure, own our house mortgage free in our 30s, but live in a state of constant panic of what if, what if something terrible happens to one of us?
Forcing someone to continue working while being treated in counterintuitive and should be illegal.
I work for a small employer, insurance changes every 12 months. This is not only a waste of time forcing every employee to complete numerous forms every year even if they opt out, a considerable amount of executive and admin time to manage and we all live with uncertainty on what the plan will be in the future.
The current system is horrible for everyone. This country is a disgrace.
29
@CEI "I don't want my insurance connected to my employment!"
I agree 100%. And I would think such an economic argument would be persuasive to Republicans as well... unless they don't really want to see everyone, at all income levels, taking advantage of the resulting mobility.
9
@CEI: Right. Employers providing health insurance never made sense, it was a historical accident. I myself was pretty lucky, finally settling down and getting good health coverage though my employers until I retired, but it was always clear that the skills of running a retail business were unrelated to the skills of providing health insurance. And moving from one to another was a real problem, and there are plenty of people who move from employer to employer more often than I did. And even more who would like to, if not for the need to keep their health insurance. Miserable, inefficient way to deal with health care.
6
For many Americans it's cheaper to pay the doctors' "out of network" rates than it is to pay those costly individual plan premiums.
Americans have made an assessment whether Obamacare is worth it. They are voting with their feet. Only republicans gave them this freedom. If it were up to democrats, they'd still be claiming Obamacare was wonderful and "insured" so many more Americans (most of whom were enrolled in Medicaid).
6
@AACNY Nonsense. The ACA expanded medicaid to include the working poor who cannot afford individual policies. That's where most of the expanded coverage comes from. Unfortunately the insurance industry is trying to privatize Medicaid and boost profits by denying essential care.
17
@Dan Woodard MD
Dan not sure you understand the point.
Working poor are covered. Poor are covered.
Those that dropped out most likely dropped out because it saved lots of money.
4
People keep voting for this, not because they want to suffer, but because they are willing to suffer if they can make sure that other Americans will have to suffer.
Trump continually divides the country.
But he and his friends will continually get richer.
11
@Grove I'm afraid you're right. My mom calls it cutting off your nose to spite your face.
5
It may be that wage gains are finally benefiting middle class and low income families, but I would bet that the cost of health insurance, and of overall health care, is increasing much more rapidly than family income for the 99 per cent of us. Of course, trickle down economics does nothing to address our income disparity between the rich and the middle class, not to mention the poor.
The MAGA Republicans (that is to say, all Republicans) are far more anxious to destroy the Affordable Care Act than to come up with solutions to our health care crisis. But for Senator McCain, they would have succeeded by now. A lower court has already declared the ACA to be unconstitutional. Both Medicaid and Medicare are threatened. Continued access to health care for the 99 per cent of us looks grim unless there is a big political change in 2020.
6
Misleading article.
Under Trump- those people forced under Obama to pay for high deductible insurance no longer have government telling them what they need to do.
500 a month on average for bronze plan plus 4,000 deductible was not “affordable” for many. Instead, they chose to save 6,000 annual payment and because Trump retained pre-existing conditions- people were better off.
This isn’t that difficult to understand. Yet The NY Times, chooses to make this a case of lacking compassion. Quite the opposite. Many middle-class families are much better off.
6
Keep drinking that Kool-Aide.
4
@wally s. - Guess you missed that people on the bottom of the economic ladder end up not paying much of anything for health care under the ACA. In years my income has been down I have gotten pretty much free healthcare, while in years my income is up I have had to pay a bit but never face value for the plan that we have. Most years we pay way less than we paid prior to the 2014.
All you are doing is repeating right wing talking points that amount to second class fake news.
3
@wally s. I hope you don't need to get any drugs for which there is no generic if you have no insurance. Type 1 diabetic granddaughter would have to pay well over $300 a month for her insulin if her parents had no insurance.
2
Here we go again NYT..people are drowning in all sorts of debt, deficit is blowing up and wages are not really increasing. Recession here we come but the economy is good. Nice reporting.
8
I like the trick where the “average” wage, factors in the super wealthy.
People are drowning- we need wages.
Not extra abortions or paid time off or more tax returns or reparations or transgendered surgical operations in prison.
We need wages and climate relief- that is all- every ‘group’ should be working for these two goals and you can go grandstand about your pet issue right after you remember we are all Americans and we need a planet to live on and living wages to support ourselves!
Everything else is just chatter or self promotion.
@Stevered you sound like a flapper from the 1920’s. Dance on.. the truth will bite you in the butt eventually.
As Donald Trump would say, “Mission Accomplished”.
Our “leaders” certainly don’t work for the people.
They are just there to see how much they can steal for themselves.
10
Will Trump claim this as a success?
3
My husband is on the ACA, since Trump took office his rate went from $329 per month to $659 per month .....
This was done to destroy healthcare from within...
29
That increase actually was expected when the ACA was being designed... a little ticking time bomb. It is not simply the result of a change in administrations.
4
Conservative thought concludes that America became more Free.
3
What a cruel system you have. To deny access to health care for all of your citizens seems intentional and incredibly mean spirited.
33
His name is Bernard Sanders.
2
Sometimes it seems that unless there is perfection, meaningful progress can’t be celebrated. The lowest poverty rate ever and middle class income has risen. This is headline worthy without any caveats. But no, must be bad news too so print that right along side.
Here’s a proposed fictional headline “Trump cures cancer, devastating the medical profession”. Would you print that too? Come on NYT, you can do better.
4
@Paul Yes Fox News and other right wing source screamed for years how badly the country was doing under Obama as joba and the stock market grew year after years. Now that things have flattened out under Trump, we are supposed to talk about how well they are doing.
2
@Paul Ah Paul, they do print the good news, but what you fail to realize is whatever trump does is at the expense of something else. Even Pollyanna has to recognize the truth eventually.
More poor people suffering at the hands of gleeful Republicans. This is fundamentally evil behavior.
6
Vote for Trump and it’ll be lowered and Hilary will be blamed
So much winning for Trump Voters
4
Where's Trumpcare? Or is this it?
7
Bbbbbut the President "Promised" us healthcare that we were all going to love!!! Had enough?!?!?!
10
The problem is the cost of insurance. Period. It is not affordable unless the deductibles are so high that it becomes only catastrophe coverage since one can't afford to use it for anything else. Even with government subsidies, the insurance companies need to make their profits somewhere and they do it by increasing premiums for the paying public and small businesses. While bringing aboard so many free or subsidized insured, the program also brought aboard higher costs for the group nobody talks about - the middle income folks, the small businesses, etc. Since the ACA, costs have skyrocketed to unaffordable levels with senior premiums getting destroyed in the process. The ACA destroyed a system that worked for a good section of the economy that contributes back to the economy. Yes it brought the prior uninsured into the system but it pushed out the prior insured to do so.
Anyone who has used the Medicare system recently will find that there is a dearth of physicians taking new patients since each Medicare patient is a loss of income to most of them who do not scam the system. Anyone notice the lack of docs and the long wait times? How about the early retirements? Add forced Medicare to the system and you will see no docs soon enough. Who would go through the training and expense to earn the same amount as a someone who did neither of those? It is a mess and it started with the ACA. I hope this administration can fix it.
4
It works in Canada because the middle person - the insurance companies - are not in there making a profit off of people’s’ desperation. In Canada Medicare is paid for by taxes. Capitalist profit does not belong in a health care system.
5
@Lynn - I have never noticed any waiting times at all. Been to the doc three times in the last year (the most every) and just called the doc to make an appointment and then drove right on over. My healthcare premium costs for both myself and my wife are way lower these days than before the ACA went into effect. We several times have gotten 100% reimbursement for her Obamacare premiums, while my medicare premiums are not bad at all.
2
Plus, there are aggressive bean-counters looking at the cost of care and relative benefits. That's why there are no MRI machines at every hospital in a city or region. That's why you would go to a clinic for x-rays rather than have an x-ray machine in every physician groups office. There are limits on the use of an OB/GYN - if it's not a high-risk pregnancy expect to see your GP instead, who will probably also deliver the baby. In socialized medicine there is a different way of doing things. It's not bad, it is just that we have some needlessly expensive habits.
1
Where’s the Sharpie when you need it? Can’t we just draw a line on the graph showing a steep decline in the number of uninsured? Then, it’s magically true!
6
I'm sure that Trump and his Republican enablers are ecstatic that they have reached another goal in their campaign for no-health-insurance-for-all...Trump probably used his Sharpie pen to cross it off his to-do list. The march towards third-world nation status continues.
7
In many rural areas of China, people pay their local “physician” as long as they’re healthy. If they get sick, they stop the payments until they are once again healthy. Our health care system is structured on the principle that there’s no profit in the prevention of sickness. For the health care industry to prosper, bunches of the population must be sick. Every “health” insurance system in the world relies on sickness for their existence. If prostate (one of many types) cancer were actually cured, how many in the health care industry would lose their jobs? How many hospitals would be forced to close? The point is, “we want all of our people to live healthy lives”. Do we? Then why is the overwhelming emphasis placed on “ask your doctor if Asphyxia is right for you”? While, a tiny, insignificant fraction of insurance company dollars goes toward incentives and programs aimed at keeping people healthy?
5
I just read an important story that the MSM seems to be glossing over in that for the first time since the early 1900s, "hookworm" disease has, once again, reared its ugly head especially in the southern rural poor parts of America all mainly caused by poor sanitation and an absence of clean water.
If poverty levels have decreased yet, this is happening along with less people have health coverage, America could have a health crisis on its hand. Not a particular good example of a country that claims to be advanced and civilized.
6
These numbers don't add up. Either people are getting kicked off insurance, are losing benefits for various reasons, or there are a lot more people living in poverty than are being counted. This news is disturbing and I doubt we're get more than a small fraction of the truth.
3
Makes you think, doesn’t it? Yes, people are losing their health care, the costs are rising, and they’re making less (adjusted) than they used to and/or falling off the rolls of those getting counted re unemployment.
Capitalism is an amoral system. Don’t be fooled into thinking otherwise. You can’t have a for-profit health care system that helps people.
7
We all actually share the same view: middle income and lower income people can't afford health insurance (if you make any higher than half of minimum wage you don't qualify for medicaid or snap, or child care.) You're on your own buying diapers and other baby expenses. Food prices are higher than they were, houses are too expensive for many, home owners insurance is too expensive, prescription drugs are too expensive, student loans limit all possibilities of meeting living expenses. We are all paying for the rich to get richer, the corporations to make higher profits. The government makes decisions on how our tax dollars are spent. We no longer have any voice to determine a present or future for us, the American people. Why do Trump voters remain ignorant about how they are being used? They dream that Trump is rescuing them. And in the mean time they can't afford birth control or health care for their children and themselves. They suffer the worst educational opportunities with poor schools and teachers who have to work second jobs to support their families. How did George Orwell know this would indeed be our reality?
7
Health insurance is vital. When people can't get help for mental health problems AND have access to guns, that's the perfect recipe for mass shootings.
Europe has universal healthcare (on top of strict gun laws). So people with mental health problems get the needed attention. That's why you don't hear of weekly mass shootings in Europe...
9
The plutonomy is doing extremely well. There are now more billionaires than at any other time in history. But the so-called "economy" as it is experienced by, say, anybody below the top 10% of wealth owners: not so much.
Even insured people are going bankrupt and getting sued by hospitals because they can't pay for "out of network" costs and co-pays. Annual high deductibles making cheaper plans more "affordable" simply means that many families never catch up on their medical bills.
Additionally, the way we measure poverty in the US is deeply flawed, because the "median income" standards put in place in the more equitable early 60s don't take into account the steeply rising cost of living. Housing alone is eating up greater and greater shares of people's incomes. These people may not be defined as officially poor, but they are still just one or two paychecks, or a household emergency, away from outright destitution and homelessness.
Also, if you measure the childhood poverty rate, you find that one out of every five children in the United States can be deemed to be poor.
In other words, poverty has been defined downward, the better for politicians to justify cuts to social programs while lavishly rewarding the already too-rich.
Arguments (largely financed by the predatory insurance industry, for-profit hospital chains and drug companies) against Medicare for All are getting flimsier by the minute.
6
If you lose your health insurance,
If you go bankrupt because of medical bills,
If the quality of your life has diminished because you can't afford to take care of a treatable medical condition,
if someone you know has died because they couldn't afford adequate medical care,
If you're shocked that the United States has the highest infant mortality rate of any developed country...
Thank a Republican.
32
@Michael James
And people keep voting for this.
Insane.
6
Medicare for All would destroy healthcare for those 150 million+ covered today by Medicare and private insurance.
And Trump would use it to destroy the Democratic nominee.
1
@Dr. John
Just because single payer works well in the rest of the civilized world does not mean America has to act civilized.
4
@Dr. John, how on earth would covering all Americans under a single payer system “destroy healthcare for those 150 million+ covered today by Medicare and private insurance”? That makes no sense, especially if Medicare for 150 million is good enough for present retirees, but somehow not for the population at large. And, btw, private, employer based insurance is a gamble for all involved. Insurance companies are in the business for profit, not to pay out.
6
There’s only one solution: MfA.
5
Master of Fine Arts?
1
It's amazing to me how many Republicans want to kill Obamacare, but retain the Affordable Care Act. Go figure. Like the elderly woman in 2008 who said "Keep your government hands off my Medicare!" Ignorance should be classified as a risk factor.
12
In other news, the share of Americans who can afford to use their "health insurance", along with the number of cancer victims who end up declaring bankruptcy, are at all time highs.
The elite and their politicians and media just don't get it: our private health insurance system only works if you make a lot of money.
9
Well, what more can I say than I am glad I live in NZ where we have a public health system for all citizens. (You can also take out private health insurance if you can to as an option.)
You'd think with the USA being one of he biggest oil producers in the world and being self sufficient in oil that the government would be taking care of it's own citizens in health and retirement without having to take out private insurances. All I see on USA graphs is the rich getting richer and the government debt going up and up and...….
The government has got it all back to front if illegal immigrants get free health care and legal citizens cannot. USA legal citizens first. In England the national health service calls it health tourism. People who specifically target your nation for the free public welfare system and leave without paying the bill.
2
@CK If we did not have enormous military expenses, much more than any other country, we could probably afford healthcare for all.
3
I may have missed this in the article, but has the definition of poverty level been changed recently?
3
"You're gonna love your health care, folks. Mark my words." Trump's fraudulent claim is now coming back to haunt not him, but the millions who believed he cared about Americans' health care. ObamaCare works; it's not perfect, but it is better than nothing, which is exactly what Trump and his dreadful GOP sycophants have offered. It's enough to make you ill. It's all so rife with irony.
6
I thought obamacare was going to be replaced with something really terrific that would cover everybody. What happened?
8
@Dan B
Keep voting GOP until you get it.
2
Trump didn't trust Obama's numbers and I don't trust Trump's numbers.
4
There is more to this issue. While 27.5 million people have no insurance, many millions more have insurance that is astronomically expensive, has ridiculously high co-pays, and deductibles. I just saw where the total cost so far for the war in Afghanistan is 2 TRILLION dollars - and what have we achieved? Not a lot. In fact, I would argue we are right back where we started. That 2 trillion dollars would have gone a long way to assuring Americans have affordable health care. Every time the GOP says we cannot afford to provide insurance for everyone, the opposition should remind them we seem to have plenty of money for endless wars.
7
That so many people in the richest economy of the world do not have access to a reasonable standard health care is a national disgrace. Obamacare marked a vast improvement over what was, and dismantling it instead of improving it is truly a sad commentary on American values.
190
@José Fulano, I agree, except change "American values" to "Republican values."
24
@José Fulano Why do so many people in the bread basket of the US lack food? 7% of Iowa's senior citizens are food insecure in the richest country in the World. Republican family values party needs to answer for that.
9
I'm an American citizen that has lived in Austria and has never missed an election. I've been here for 30 years and had my children here. I worked the first two years before I gave birth to them (I was nearing 40) and was paid totally both times from my job in full until the birth (wasn't working!). All medical expenses were paid for, after the birth my children were covered completely and saw a doctor for check-ups every 6 weeks for the first 4 years. All covered.
Now I am retired. I never returned to work. Even so, considering I'm an American citizen, the Austrian government gave me full medical coverage in my own name. So I am no longer covered by my husband but personally. I also get monthly money (small amount) each month for all the years I was home raising my children because this government thinks its something to be rewarded for. And a very worthy effort for their country.
So poverty levels may have lifted but as someone who has supremely great coverage with the doctors I trust and have known for 30 years and know me personally, ALL AMERICANS, rich or poor, who don't have full coverage for medical care are impoverished to me--especially in the RICHEST country in the world.
VOTE. VOTE. VOTE! BLUE ALL THE WAY IN 2020!!!!!!!!!!
22
@C T
You paid for all of that through your income taxes and payroll taxes.
If you were solely on welfare and had to survive on ~800 euros a month you'd be singing a different tune.
3
When Mexico agrees to pay for the Wall, we'll have a wonderful opportunity to improve health conditions for our poor.
21
Not a surprise.
Once the requirement to buy overpriced, underperforming health insurance products was removed of course it was going to be dropped.
Does this hurt the bottom line of insurance companies? Sorry (not sorry).
4
Can anyone expect Republicans to help everyday Americans with PREVENTIVE healthcare?
It's heartbreaking to read of people who worked for some small amount of money and did not even know about how to prevent colon cancer. Simple screening, and lifestyle changes would have identified and perhaps prevented their cancer.
Will Republicans afford something like preventive healthcare to all Americans-- in school, at work, at home?
5
The reduction must include those people who were on the roll because of the federal tax extortion if they did not have insurance. Some may feel it is better to have none and save some money, then to have a policy that costs a lot and covers relatively nothing.
6
@Jane Doe Of course it is not "better to have none"...though not perfect Obama care was a start. What have the republicans given US? Nothing if you are poor or have a preexisting condition....
4
Does anyone actually believe the economic figures put out by the trump administration? I certainly don’t, I only have to look at my friends and family’s financial situations to have my doubts. Are we being given trumped-up figures?
6
@Canewielder trump lies about almost everything and suppresses the truth. We will not know the truth until he is gone!
3
Imagine, if you will, how hard it is for me, who receives all health care absolutely free, to imagine what a family that has no health insurance faces,.
Only In Sweden for me, Never in America for many but perhaps by 2024 or 2028 if you without survive.
And the children?
I expect to be reading individual stories here, stories that will just sratch the surface since most comment writers presumably have health insurance.
Or?
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
7
@Larry Lundgren
Yes, but Conservatives will tell the world that you live in a commie socialist garbage dump that will self destruct any minute now. 50% tax rates are self destructive, regardless of your balanced budgets, health care, education and retirement. And the fact that Swedes must take 4 weeks paid vacation by law only demonstrates what slaves you are to your oppressive, autocratic government, regardless of the 80% voting participation rate. It just shows that workers will just take and take. No self respecting American. wants to take any vacation. Americans, unlike Swedes, vote to keep working to make their corporations rich, no matter how hard they have to work or how little they get paid.
5
@Larry Lundgren your healthcare isn't free. You pay MUCH higher taxes. Most Americans have employer provided healthcare.
1
Employer sponsored health insurance is absolutely not free! I pay $12,000 in premiums along with a $6,000 deductible. I work for a Fortune 100 corporation that is known for ‘great’ benefits.
1
I made $ 24 000 a year until 3 months ago, when I was diagnosed with Stage III Colon Cancer. After the operation I was transfered yesterday to Chemotherapy
There was a list of 11 items, each with an out of pocket limit of $ 2 000 that I had to sign. For a total of $ 22 000.
My disability pay is $ 12 000 a year.
I will lose everything just slower than if I had no insurance at all.
40
No insurance, or in my case, diluted health insurance. I had a child approximately 4 years ago. Out of pocket entire thing (office visits through delivery)? Around $400. Fastforward to last year. Our second arrived. Out of pocket? Approximately $5000. Same employer. Same position. Even same insurer, just moved to different plan by the company.
36
My daughter had her baby in Spain. Total cost: $0.
That's exactly what Trump led GOP wants, it seems. More people would be forced to accept work with lower wages and many others, who would be retiring now, would also be forced to continue to work to survive. That's why even with historically low unemployment, quality of lives of working class Americans are deteriorating and other available options to increase good paying jobs are gradually being closed down, while big companies continue to increase its profit margin and many hardly pay just any tax, even that lower tax that Trump introduced for them.
Most economic policies of Trump indicate towards that direction. Ultimately, Trump would be more than happy to legalize slavery with a justification that it would be so helpful for American economy and American companies when (White) businessmen pay nothing for labor. It's part of "Keeping American Great" pledge.
14
Well, according to Joe Biden, he does not support single payer Medicare for All because "the vast majority of people are satisfied with their own healthcare system today." That is cold comfort for the 27.5 million Americans with no health insurance.
13
Joe Biden does not speak for me.
I expect Mr. Biden is simply parroting what his corporate donors have told him.
I would like Mr. Biden to give me the names of the relatively few people satisfied with the health insurance they pay for (not the ones with heavily subsidized rates), I don't believe this would be a large list.
6
I won’t vote for Biden for this reason. And if you go into debt paying for what your expensive for profit health insurance refuses to pay, Biden has made it more difficult to declare bankruptcy.
I have a wonderful healthcare plan that costs my wife and me $100/month. I am a military retiree. I have never encountered the VA. Military retirees are covered by TriCare and Medicare. No copays, no deductibles, no caps. Prescription drugs are free if generic, and inexpensive if not. I also have a decent pension that began when I retired from the Air Force at age 44 that is COLA protruded.
6
@JSK Yes, the military benefits all around are very good but not consistent with anything out there outside of perhaps what politicians get for themselves. Most people even who have good insurance through employer pay 20% out of pocket with copays. What you get is great but is essentially just subsidized heavily by taxes.
7
@Glen.
I also pay taxes. I also served in Vietnam. Military service is available to anyone who can pass a fairly simple physical. My oldest daughter is like me, a retired colonel, and my son had two Army tours in Iraq. I support bringing back the military draft with no exemptions.
4
@JSK signing your rights away to the govt is fine for soldiers but not citizens wanting medicare for all
This is no surptise. to me, and with the terribly broken system we have in place, it is designed to get more expensive each year. When are people going to realize that "Socialism" is not a bad word?
12
Scary...I am pretty healthy, cautious, well-off and well-insured. However, bad things can happen without warning. My husband fell of his bike last month, landed on his face, and I called the paramedics. My husband ended up without serious injuries and just left the hospital with stitches and severe bruises. However, we were left with a $40,000 bill for the two hours in the ER. While I think insurance will resolve some of this, I am still expecting to have to pay thousands. 40K is the annual income for some people, represents a year of college tuition for us, and is similar to our annual federal tax bill...I guess some of the outrageous bill covers the cost to the hospital for taking care of the uninsured (who don't pay $20,000 a year for insurance my family does like). Not really fair...Makes me more interested in medicare-for-all than I have been in the past.
33
@Anne
No operation and $40K? That is insane. Even with very detailed CT and MRI, presumably to rule out serious injury warranting immediate surgery, this is overpriced and definitely intended to be negotiated down by the insurer. Single payer, like in Canada and Sweden would fix this type of problem by cutting out the insurance company middlemen (there are several). Same goes for the drug business, if there were a national drug insurance program.
8
So there are large wage gains for people at the bottom of the wage scale but the median income does not change. Assuming that people who were earning at the median income level got an average raise, approximately 3.2%, one might assume that the median income would increase. I think that the fact that the median income did not raise implies that most of the new hires must be at a level below the median income level.
7
Considering, at 63, single, non-smoker, healthy, I had to get the most high deductible policy I could find, which had my doctor, and that cost over $1000/month. With a subsidy, it is $150. A good silver plan, would have cost me $2000/month; with a subsidy, $1150/month.
These premiums would eb worse if this were for a couple or f amily.
No, it is not that the ACA was weakened, it is being gouged by insurance companies. The biggest flaw, with the ACA, is that the law allows insurance companies to create the smallest groups of people possible, so they can claim higher risk and higher premiums. On top of that, each state divides itself into rating territories; Colorado has nearly 30. In Denver, my premiums would be 10% - 15% less, in the mountains, they would be 20% to 25% more.
The older you get the worse the premiums.I dread to see what is going to happen in January. I am one year away from Medicare and counting the days. i am hoping nothing bad happens, in the meantime.
Those over 62, and retired should be allowed to buy into Medicare, inst6ead of being forced to pay mortgage payments for health insurance that has a $7000 deductible.
And people wonder why less people are buying health insurance.
39
@Nick Metrowsky I agree everyone should buy into Medicare, but why start at age 60? It is the best system in America. Every American should buy into it from age 0.
22
So insurance companies should provide coverage at fixed pricing regardless of risk? Would you be willing to work for $2 an hour because "society" would somehow be better off if you did?
@Nick Metrowsky
Healthcare in America costs $3.5 Trillion a year. Do the math. $890 per month per person is what we spend ON AVERAGE. Why are you complaining about $1,000 per month?
Cut out the insurance middleman and we would save $175 per person per month. Cut out the profits of drug manufacturers and we would save another $100 a month.
4
My company struggles to offer good, affordable health insurance to their employees. Nevertheless, a huge number of employees waive coverage because paying premiums - any premiums - are a hardship.
Affordable insurance is an oxymoronic fantasy. We should be talking about affordable healthcare for everyone that doesn't involve various self-serving middlemen. Cut the insurance companies and employers out of this process, THEN we will be on the right path.
65
Right - because "the government" has such a steller record of providing good services with limited paperwork, great service and cost efficiency.
The IRS, Post Office and DMV are great examples of the above.
Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security all currently operate deeply in the red. Adding tens of millions more beneficiaries to these badly run programs will make them worse, not better.
The fantasy land of perfectly delivered government "free stuff" only exists in the mouths of politicians. The reality is quite different.
@Fred Rick
Excellent Republican talking points, of course, if you bothered looking at all the countries in the rest of the civilized world who provide universal healthcare, everything you state is totally false.
8
So this means that a good portion of this uninsured population is one illness away from bankruptcy and destitution. That should be good for the country- NOT!
15
@Meri
Probably ALL of them and one must include those with large copays that suffer from chronic illness or as a result of an injury.
2
"The growth in the ranks of the uninsured was particularly striking because the economy was doing well."
Let's be honest here. The economy is only "doing well" because the methods we use to measure "the economy" have to do with the prices of the assets owned by a small and ever-dwindling percentage of Americans. During this decade-long period of "recovery" and "growth," we have seen skyrocketing homelessness, increased deaths from opioid and other addictions, declining life expectancy, and more and more American families struggling to make ends meet.
"Median household income" is a near-meaningless measure, since (as the joke goes) it increases exponentially the minute a billionaire walks into the room. And please spare me a report on wage gains for those at the bottom of the ladder published by the likes of the disingenuous American Enterprise Institute!
Those who are mystified at the decline in the number of Americans with health insurance ought to do a little "shopping around" on one of the exchanges to see current premiums and deductibles are relative to *actual* incomes (factoring in the double Social Security tax paid by the self-employed). They should also take a hard look at the shocking number of medical bankruptcies, including among those who thought they were "insured."
22
@Frank F
Median is where half are above and half are below; it is not as skewed by billionaires as average.
That said, given the rate at which housing, education and healthcare costs have gone up, any income gains go directly to necessities. So yes, you do make more, but it sure feels like it costs a lot more to keep up the same quality of life.
I am looking at becoming self employed and in my business model, my income would remain steady. Given this, my health insurance premium would be 11% of my income. Just 8 years ago, when I was self employed, making 15% less, it was 4% of my income to cover my premiums. And my deductible back then was $2500, not $10,000.
What has happened in this country is that it is VERY hard to take the risk of losing employer healthcare plans. It's why I stay at an unproductive job. I can't risk not having insurance, yet who knows how much my premiums will be in 5 years?
10
@Frank F That is the response from the trenches. My thoughts exactly.
5
@MC
You also hope, because of downsizing or any other reason, your existing job does not disappear.
2
No simple answers here. While I don't want people's lives to be more difficult, we have to account for the possibility that not everything related to this administration is a dumpster fire.
However, I don't necessarily welcome any kind of "good" economic news, because if there is any impression that Trump's actions actually help regular people, and then he is re-elected, then that is absolutely bad for the future of the entire world.
Also- can one trust this information absolutely? A certain sharpie on a hurricane map comes to mind. I put nothing past this administration.
4
Our healthcare system, simply put, is evil. From the Pharms pushing highly addictive drugs to obscene over-priced medical procedures. Healthcare should not be a money making business, it should be non-profit and socialized, look at the scandinavian countries, Germany, or even Canada as working example. Until that happens you will continue to see people in this situation
10
People who are still opposed to universal health care, whatever it's labeled, may be hopeless. The large majority of people who favor it, as wanting to join citizens in all advanced countries in the world, are the hope for it here. Affordable? Yep.
18
Truly, those words could have come from my mouth. Only when people realize that any hope for "better" health care, is when it should be be "modified". I would model it partially after Canada's and Great Britain's healthcare systems. Take the best parts of those, and modify. We cannot continue to allow so much, to go to so few...
2
As a Canadian, I find it amazing that the United States cannot deal with providing health care to all its citizens and residents. Remember, every other country in the developed world has successfully dealt with this issue.
78
@A proud Canadian
Part of it is that the majority of people are covered through employers. In my case, insurance is less than $200 a month. I can see the doctor for a $15 copay, and there really is nothing wrong with my plan, except it is tied to employment. A lot of people don't want to lose that. Without that pool of people, the other potential fixes are not all that feasible.
If everyone had to go out and find their own insurance, without their employer subsidizing it, you'd see rapid change.
3
@A proud Canadian, as an American I couldn't agree with you more. Unconscionable.
12
@A proud Canadian
Unlike the civilized world, the United States has purposely created an industry around health care. Everyone, in health care, wants to profit from human misery; it is as simple as that. Drug Companies, insurers, hospitals, clinics and doctors, all profit from this mess. On top of this, people are limited to small groups of doctors and hospitals. If you go out of network, you get either limited coverage or none. And, to save money, may people are stuck with insurance that does not cover anything until you pay between $6000 - $7000 of out of pocket medical expenses in addition to premiums. And, all along the health care gravy train pays profits.
Now, for the American who says Canada health care is bad. Thanks to misinformation from conservative news, commentators and lobbyists; they are wrong.
In Ontario, where this poster comes from, all you have to do is show your Ontario Health Care Card and you get the medical care you need. You pay little or no fees, and little or none for a prescription. You get sick you can go anywhere. If you are in another province, you are still covered; there is no such thing as out of network and adverting drugs on TV.
Yes, Canadians pay for that with taxes. Guess what? after so called "Tax Reform", Canadians pay less taxes, percent wise, than in the US.
Canadians have what the US doesn't have; health care is a right, not a for profit venture.
321
Just imagine where we would be today if the Clinton's universal health care plan of 1993 had become the law.
Articles like this would not be written. Our healthcare would likely be the envy of the world, costs lower, quality of life vastly improved.
But we didn't buy into it some 26 years ago. Probably one of the biggest mistakes we ever made.
29
@cherrylog754 Unfortunately Clinton's plan would have been rather like Obamacare in that private insurance companies would have been allowed to deny care to boost their income. Sander's plan is the most effective.
6
The Hilary Clinton healthcare debacle during Bill Clintons first term?
3
@cherrylog754
I lived through Clinton's health plan of 1993.
It was actually a lot like Obamacare. Ultimately, you were required to buy health policies through private insurers. It was based on the belief of businessmen that the free market *can* work -- provided the government gives them enough subsidies and handouts.
As Paul Starr described it, it was a health care plan created by politicians and economists. It was based on the assumption that most people get health care through their employer, which would continue. https://prospect.org/article/hillarycare-mythology
"Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist, Bill Kristol, and other figures in the conservative movement saw health reform as an ideological threat because if it succeeded, it might renew New Deal beliefs in the efficacy of government, whereas a defeat of the health plan could set liberalism back for years."
You could have taken either of two lessons from that: To get universal health care, you have to (1) fight the Republicans as aggressively as they fight us, for systemic, not incremental change, or (2) capitulate, give the Republicans everything they want, and bribe them, so that they might be nice to us.
Obama tried the second approach. That didn't work.
My advice to Democrats is: fortis Fortuna adiuvat.
3
At this point I want Trump to destroy the ACA. I want the rural sectors of his base to become devastated by lack of health care. My question is: Does racism win over health care?
4
@XXX that is not the humane answer. The answer is for everyone to vote against Trump and the Republicans that has fallen in lockstep with this demagogue...and remember that we all are one tiny step away from a healthcare crisis that could both kill us and ruin us.
1
@XXX MLK defined the three great evils in America as 1) poverty (in the context of this article, leading to no healthcare or inadequate healthcare), 2) racism, and 3) militarism. All three of these evils work together, inseparably, to ensure the colonization of America by the billionaire class. Bernie will destroy the ACA for you, and provide MfA, as well as decapitate the billionaire class.
Whatever will you eat if your wishes come true?
I have always seriously doubted any numbers coming from Washington. Most people I know are just getting by unless they have a nice pension with a great healthcare plan built in for the rest of their lives.
GOP have no plan except the heel of their boot firmly planted on the lower and middle class.
14
In America, everyone is one catastrophic medical issue away from bankruptcy and homelessness. Everyone at some time in their lives will get sick and, eventually, pass away. The current system ensures that this is as emotionally jarring, precarious, and harmful to your finances (and those of your loved ones) as possible.
Medicare for All ensures that the inevitable sickness and dying process are done with respect and dignity.
60
“The same report showed the share of Americans living in poverty fell to 11.8 percent, the lowest level since 2001. Median household income was $63,200, essentially unchanged from a year earlier after adjusting for inflation, but significantly above where it was during the Great Recession.”
Do we trust these numbers, or have they been NOAA’ed like the Alabama weather forecast?
18
"The decade-long recovery is at last delivering income gains to middle-class and low-income families. After decades of rising inequality, recent wage gains have been strongest for people at the bottom of the earnings ladder. . . "
That information is only half true. I'm making a few bucks more now than I did a few years ago. However, the cost of EVERYTHING has increased well beyond the meager wage increase I received.
As long as inflation continues to increase anywhere between 5-7% but wages only 1-3%, then where and what are the financial gains and benefits?
I keep telling my husband, if my paycheck continues to shrink at this rate, I'll be as thin as a phasmatodea (order of insects whose members are variously known as stick insects, stick-bugs, walking sticks) by Halloween.
21
The poverty threshold is too laughably low.
According to some bean counter that comes from a wealthy family and got into Harvard on a legacy admission and a $500,000 from their parents, a family of 3 earning $19,000 per year is impoverished, but a family of 3 earning $21,000 per year is not?
These statistics are meaningless and it’s not possible to derive any conclusions from them. Of course, this also means that conservatives will try to use that meaningless talking point as some kind of economic baby Simba.
66
@Austin Ouellette Right? Average rent on a one-bedroom apartment in NYC is about $3K per month. So that family of three will run out money just on rent partway through the year. God forbid they eat anything or put clothes on the child.
3
The lead is provocative, but misleading. The Census report says:
• The percentage of people with health insurance coverage for all or part of 2018 was 91.5 percent, lower than the rate in 2017 (92.1 percent). Between 2017 and 2018, the percentage of people with public coverage decreased 0.4 percentage points, and the percentage of people with private coverage did not statistically change.
• Between 2017 and 2018, the percentage of people covered by Medicaid decreased by 0.7 percentage points to 17.9 percent. The rate of Medicare coverage increased by 0.4 percentage points. The percentage of people with employment-based coverage, direct-purchase coverage, TRICARE, and VA or CHAMPVA health care did not statistically change between 2017 and 2018.
The likely cause of the drop in Medicaid participation is the increase in employment among the poor and minorities. They are not eligible for federal benefits, and have not yet qualified for private coverage; or it is not available through their employer, because of the nature of their employment or time on the job.
9
Very biased...many young people decline to have health insurance coverage as an unnecessary expense. So, when the coercion of the fine is removed, they drop coverage. The philosophy of invincibility is at work here which means we will never have 100 coverage. Notice however many fewer people have moved above the poverty line. They can afford a doctor visit.
9
As the cohort that is the healthiest, they don't expect to need health insurance and see it as a large, unnecessary expense. Unfortunately they end up with less than needed in some situations.
2
This article seems to imply that income inequality the gap between the rich and everyone else has improved, but it also says that adjusting for inflation the median income level has not changed. But the rich continue their relentless spiral upward and adjusting for inflation just does not matter to them. We may be holding steady but we are not catching up.
I would be interested in more depth coverage of these statistics. Poverty rates may decline as some find jobs, but what kind of jobs and how long do those fighting to find income insecurity need to work to do so? Do they receive Medical befits? The latter seems unlikely as the ranks of those uninsured has increased according to this article. NYT we need more information rather than blanket statements.
8
I know people like to blame Republicans for this. Reality for me is, small business owner, family of 4, don’t qualify for any subsidy. My health insurance was $1500 per month with a $12000 per person deductible, couldn’t keep my doctor, they do t take Blue Cross anymore. I have literally no choice for anything else. Basically, it was costing me as much as HOUSING. Trump administration now allows “temporary” policies that I can renew for 3 years. My new cost $744 per month, doctors in network, $10000 deductible. I am very happy with this new insurance.
My mom, recently deceased, was on Medicare, I really did not like Medicare. Takes the doctors out of the decisions. I cringe when I have to go on it.
Can we find some kind of market based system? Government in our healthcare kills innovation and forces doctors to endlessly fill out paperwork, EMR.
9
@Bianca
Yes, it comes down to what we see with our own two eyes. My husband and I lost our small group insurance plan because of Obamacare. (It disallowed mom-and-pop businesses from purchasing on that market.)
I lost my platinum-level plan (no, it wasn't junk) that I had had for 15 years. Lost all my doctors, specialists and even hospitals because they weren't covered by plans on the exchange.
At one point I went to the insurance person at my long-time medical group and asked which individual plans it accepted. I would buy a plan it would accept. Her response was surprising. She couldn't say whether the insurers would allow them to renew their current individual plans.
A key issue for me is having the ability to choose my own doctors, specialists and hospitals. I believe I am in the best position to make those decisions. I don't want to pick a doctor from a menu (whether government's or otherwise) like I'm ordering from a fast food menu.
Obamacare eliminated my ability to choose. Why couldn't they just have expanded Medicaid? This represents the bulk of their newly insured. Instead, we've lost our ability to choose our doctors, plans, etc.
10
@Bianca
You're happy with 744/month for premiums and a $10000 deductible? I can only assume you don't have any chronic health issues, and have never had any major acute ones. Most Americans can't find a spare $500 for an emergency, let alone $20000.
As for the market, health care doesn't, and can't, meet the standards of a free market. When a party to a deal is not free to walk away from it, it by definition is not a free market. When there is not symmetrical information of the services being provided, it by definition is not a free market. Chasing market solutions is what got us into this mess in the first place. It's time to look around the world to see what works. North of the border is a great place to start.
4
@Bianca Wow, you are not just okay with 10,000 deductible, but very happy? What is your yearly income, a fact left out of your little anecdote? It must be substantial. And Medicare took the doctors out of the decisions for you aging mom? Everyone that I know on Medicare would strongly disagree with you.
We have very patient/doctor centered plans.
The USA had market based systems for years and in fact still do. They just don't work. Obamacare was crippled by the Republican Party and governors at every turn. Enjoy your $10,000 deductible but don't wish it on the rest of the country. Jeeesh...
3
A lot of people will take the chance because they have little in the way of assets to lose. So whether you lose to a judgement or a $15,000 deductible doesn't really matter.
The safety net is just not that appealing.
5
It is shameful that the Trump administration and their Republican allies have sought to weaken Obamacare rather than strengthen and improve it.
The decline in coverage is a consequence of their callous policy choices. I hope they suffer politically for this and are both voted out of office. In the future improving our healthcare system should be a high priority of the next administration. It is vital to the quality of life of all Americans and a powerful engine for jobs and the economic growth in the future.
8
Reality is that if Trump gave free healthcare to all you wouldn’t like that either. Your not credible.
Affordable healthcare in the US has been problematic for generations and crosses all political lines.
If your group stopped bellyaching all day on matters of no consequence, perhaps we could reach some compromise on these issues.
7
@Louis Molinari "Your group"? Seems to me that the Republicans watered down Obamacare in deference to their corporate sponsors. As to "matters of no consequence"? Are you kidding? The Dems are all about Healthcare, Global Warming and the like. But hey, we get it. The Republicans constant wars are making our society wealthier and healthier.
1
@Louis Molinari
Affordable healthcare wasn't a problem for my father's generation. He was a union member, a skilled employee, he had a lifetime job, and he used to brag that his health care plan paid 100% of his expenses for him and his family, even after he retired.
Health care isn't a problem today for people in Canada or the UK.
3
Until people’s health and lives are deemed more important than profits, nothing will ever be done to improve our healthcare system.
46
So, nothing will ever be done.
1
Isn't this exactly what the Republican elites wanted? More Americans without health insurance? In November 2020, the Republican Party deserves to reap the whirlwind for this and its many other outrageous sins.
8
Correction: what we all want is a system that works and is fair to all.
Corporate profits are incredibly important but not relative to this thread. Healthcare is also very important. In fact, you can’t have one without the other. If corporations don’t thrive, there will be less taxes collected and the problem gets worse.
Perhaps you can take a moment and not be political and offer constructive advice on how to solve the healthcare problem without bankrupting America and those taxpayers who will shoulder any burden.
Question: Did you know you can volunteer to pay additional taxes to cover the shortfall? How much have you volunteered to donate? I think that speaks volumes about your commitment to a solution.
Put your pen down.
6
@Louis Molinari Please spare us the childish retort that anyone in favor of higher taxes should voluntarily pay more out of their own pocket. Setting tax rates is a matter of a democracy deciding collectively its priorities for services that only government can provide, and that every citizen is expected to contribute to. If you don't like the policy proposals, vote accordingly. You wouldn't suggest that those in favor of a strong national defense should pay for it through voluntary donations.
1
American health insurance is a joke. I am paying $4200/year for barely any coverage. I have about $7000 of deductibles. I don't smoke, am healthy and exercise, I don't know why there can't be better options out there for people who are taking care of their health and still get coverage for the occasion office visit.
9
@Jonathan I pay $4200 a year and I have zero deductibles zero co-pay. It’s called Medicare and Medigap. Or universal healthcare.
2
@Jonathan: what you describe is WHAT OBAMACARE IS and how it was designed -- it is costly, high deductible, catastrophic insurance -- exactly what we were misled to believe would be BANNED.
It is impossible today on the exchanges, for any sum, to buy a policy that is NOT a high deductible policy. There are no policies (such as I had just in the 90s) with a $200 deductible (for one person).
Even if you pay $1000 a month, you will still face down a deductible of at LEAST $5000 and possibly more.
Another hidden gem: Obamacare made it LEGAL to charge people over age fifty a 450% (!!!!) markup over younger customers. That is not a typo.
5
the income gains at the low end of the income distribution is far more likely to have come from the increases in minimum wage by many states than anything trump did. It would be useful to know if those wage increases were concentrated in those states.
8
Additionally, it would be helpful to ascertain how many of the folks not receiving insurance are illegally in this country. How much does that cost? How many Americans could get insurance but for the fact that the tax dollars go to illegals. This is a real cost issue and Dems have been irresponsible in their proposals to solve.
Let’s compromise.
4
@Louis Molinari The Rand Corporation estimates the cost of healthcare for undocumented immigrants, who account for 3.2% of the population, at about 1.5% of overall healthcare spending. Meanwhile, administrative costs amount to 30% of spending, about twice the figure in Canada.
Your focus on the former says more about your attitude toward immigrants than your concern for genuine solutions to the healthcare crisis.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9230/index1.html
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmsa022033
Median household income has nothing to do with people abandoning their healthcare. Why would anyone pay $7200 a year in premiums and endure a $15 thousand deductible for a family of four when illegal immigrants cross our southern border, get immediate medical attention and pay nothing? There's absolutely no value in anymore.
11
@Kurt Pickard - Please cite your sources for this assertion.
4
@Kurt Pickard
Maybe if your state wasn't busy suing to kill the Affordable Care Act (which Republicans in Congress have tried to do legislatively some 50 times) we could have already amended the ACA to make it more affordable. Maybe if you elected Democrats who're trying to improve our health system, rather than destroy what progress we've made, you wouldn't have to resent the fact that any medical system won't let people die in the street, regardless of their legal status. You are blaming the wrong people and Mr Trump is lying to you about having a better plan which protects pre-existing conditions. If his/your lawsuit succeeds, that protection is gone.
@Kurt Pickard: and that FACT is why the Democrats will LOSE LOSE LOSE this election.
By a landslide, despite their optimistic projections.
Every person who has (or knows someone who has) lousy worthless Obamacare with huge deductibles....and sees the illegals getting free health care (and food and bus fare and all the rest) is furious with white hot rage, and will not support Democrats with their "open borders" policies.
7
It's really quit remarkable and a sad that so many Americans don't have nor can afford Health Insurance. How long will it take for your Government to wake up. The Senate and Congress are fully covered but poor Americans can't pay to visit a doctor or hospital without mortgaging their house. Canada has had Universal Healthcare since 1968, which isn't the greatest but I can have all kinds of medical procedures without paying outright for them. Bernie Sanders has brought bus loads of Americans here to buy insulin because it's too expensive back home Force your elected officials to get to work, do their jobs.
26
Isn't this exactly what America voted for in 2016? Not all Americans voted for Donald Trump, but we all deserve him, for allowing this monstrosity to occur in the first place. It might be that my ability to feel sympathy for anyone is slowly dying, because that's the America we live in now, but we have nobody to blame but ourselves, as a society.
9
@Samuel: It isn’t hard to see, with the benefit of hindsight, how the “monstrosity occurr(ed)”. It is hard to accept that we’ve allowed and even encouraged it to continue and to become ever more monstrous. It will be impossible to reconcile if we allow it to happen again.
1
Other people have said the same thing; I don't see how you can blame the people who voted for Hillary Clinton, who were a legitimate majority of the 2016 voters, for the monstrous actions of Donald Trump. Trump is the fault of the undemocratic Electoral College. The Republican majority in the Senate is the result of gerrymandering. The people of the United States do not deserve the Republican Senate or the the president who was forced on them by the undemocratic processes of the Electoral College
3
I’ve been saying that very same thing about the unemployment numbers. There’s those that retire and those that “outlived” their unemployment benefits. Trump throws a 1/10 success story as if it’s a great thing for everyone, yet there are 9/10 unsuccessful stories that he’s not mentioning, and those are the ones that the majority is barely living with. I’ve seen a cut in my Medicare recently also. They’re paying less for treatments that are necessary for my life. Soon, I’ll have to shop around for a supplementary policy in order to not go broke on medical bills. Right now, I have both, Medicare and a secondary, and I STILL have out of pocket expenses, which I didn’t have before I was on Medicare. Plus, paying $130 a month for Part B of Medicare! If you listen to the commercials, they say supplement policies pay UP to what Medicare doesn’t pay. That’s what’s left for me to pay. Most people receiving SS are living paycheck to paycheck. We get that once a month! Making ends meet on a once a month payment doesn’t allow health insurance, uncovered out of pocket expenses, Part B and co-pays. Pretty obvious why people can’t afford health insurance.
10
@LI Res: I handled Medicare for a couple of elderly relatives over the last decade. So I know FOR A FACT that up until 2017....the Part B premium was $104 and had been FOR YEARS.
Obama's parting gift (*shiv in the back) was a $31 increase in Part B -- which is required for everyone -- if you don't enroll immediately at 65 and pay this monthly, you will be hit with lifetime fines and penalties.
$31 is about a 35% permanent increase in Medicare costs up front -- mandatory, before you make a single claim! and for a married couple, that's $270 a month vs. $208 a month. That's a week's groceries.
DO THE MATH.
Thanks, Obama!
4
@Concerned Citizen. It’s been rising yearly, along with the pittance of an increase we get in our SSD payments. I’ve been on Medicare since I was 62, because of ESRD since I was 59. So, I know how it works. It’s quite obvious trump has cut Medicare, as I see the reduction in the paid allowance. I never had to pay out of pocket, now I expect to see some bills coming in.
Of all the lies Trump has told, that he had a plan to fix healthcare may have been his cruelest. West Virginia and Kentucky have been particularly hard hit, but they still vote for Trump and McConnell.
It's just sad, but I guess it's their lives, or lack thereof.
10
@Joe
"If you like your health care, you can keep your health care."
"If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor."
"Your premiums will go down $2500 per year."
4
@Joe Cognitive dissonance.
And folks wonder why our birth rate is down.
9
Duh....Obamacare is a huge, stinking failure that has resulted in massive price increases, the opioid epidemic (*Expanded Medicaid -- free! -- is why so many poor folks were ABLE to get hooked on costly oxycontin), $800 insulin, $900 EpiPens and huge deductibles.
As of this month, I now have NO health insurance as I can no longer afford my ridiculous, worthless Obamacare with a $360 payment each month that only gives me a plan with a $9000 (!!!) deductible FOR ONE PERSON. It is effectively no insurance at all. This way, at least I have the $360 to pay for SOME health care. It would cover a single doctor visit, for example, or some medications.
I am 63 and I PRAY I can hang on until I age into Medicare....
THANKS OBAMA!
8
@Concerned Citizen
While understanding the frustratingly high cost of insurance, do indeed pray you aren't ill, because by then that "failed" O'care Insurance will seem like a missed mirage in the distance one only wished they had.
2
@Concerned Citizen - I'll bite. What did you do before for health insurance?
btw, Trump promised that everyone would have wonderful health care. Where is it? Republicans have had years to come up with something and they've done zilch.
6
@Concerned Citizen, I suggest you decline Medicare then because it "is a huge stinking failure that resulted in massive price increases, the opioid epidemic, $800 insulin, $900 epipens and huge deductibles." I can never wrap my head around people who hate Obamacare (government subsidized healthcare) but can't wait to take advantage of Medicare (the same government subsidized healthcare).
1
AH, the Repub fight against global warming continues. Fewer people is good
5
Dickens must have been precognitive when he had Scrooge say, "... if he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population." Definitely something he foresaw our Quisling president and the GOP apparently believing and acting on. The irony is that at the rate our citizens are dying by committing suicide, from various addictions like alcohol and opioids, being shot by spouses, neighbors and strangers, from poor diet, obesity, a sedentary lifestyle or fighting in our vanity wars, someday soon we will need to start paying immigrants to move here. President Quisling, “Take down that wall!” Oh, forgot, it never got built, just another self-serving lie to feed to the true fantasy believers.
8
The economy is great... if your rich. If not...you better find a part time job to supplement your income. I suppose this is what Trump meant by Making America Great Again.
5
Thanks, Don.
2
Big money using tools like religion, sexism, racism is definitely paying off.
7
Gee I wonder why...
2
The article title highlights a small drop in Obamacare participation, then attempts to link it to Trump with the ambiguous "some experts say". Some "experts" also say that the moon landing was faked and 9-11 was an inside job.
Of course the real news regarding the lowest poverty level in over a decade is buried further in the article and one would never know it looking at the article title.
A typical day of Trump bashing at the NYT.
12
@Robert
At his rally in North Carolina last night, Mr Trump yet again promised the crowd he would never get rid of pre-existing conditions while his Justice Dept. is currently suing to kill the ACA and do just that. He also said we were going to have a much better plan, exactly what he said 3 years ago but has never produced. A decade ago we were in the midst of the greatest recession since the great depression. We're now at the end of the longest economic expansion in our history, of course the poverty level is the lowest in the decade. It would be more newsworthy if it wasn't.
2
It's more than unfortunate that Trump and his Republican lackeys put so much time and effort into undermining functioning programs such as Obamacare rather than working to improve what exists. It seems that if a program has a hint of Obama attached to it or, in fact, in any way benefits the nation, Trump is hell-bent on eliminating it, no matter how valuable -- true in issues related to health care, environment, economy, energy, international relations, military, immigration, race, ethnicity, gender... how much of this can we withstand before our president and his party do to democracy what he is doing to Obamacare: chipping away at it bit by bit until it's gone without a trace.
4
I have been a physician for 39 years. Private medical insurance companies lobby to deny treatment to anyone who cannot buy their health insurance. Otherwise why would anyone buy it at all? And they make huge profits, which they squeeze out of our patients. pay us or you die. It's a protection racket, plain and simple. If you like your private health insurance company, you don't know what they are actually doing with your money. Medicare for All is the best strategy. The only reason it is politically difficult is that your insurance company is using your premium dollars to bribe your representatives to vote against it.
120
@Dan Woodard MD
Americans are skeptical about putting their health care into the hands of those same elected officials you are impugning. The problem is that our federal bureaucracy is trusted even less than insurance companies.
If the federal government wants to take over our health care entirely, it had better start making a better case.
6
@Dan Woodard MD With all due respect Dr. Woodward, a huge part of the cost of healthcare in the US is physicians' salaries. For example, general practitioners in the US make more than 2x the US dollar equivalent of GPs in Sweden, and 34% more than the next closest country. National healthcare in other countries works because the government sets physician salaries. Are you willing to accept that?
6
@JerseyGirl and how do the salaries of insurance bureaucrats compare to those in other countries? How do the costs of drug advertising compare to those of other countries?
13
The republicans in congress will be viewed by history as those who favored slavery, separate but equal, discrimination, denial of the vote, child labor, union discrimination, etc. etc.
At any one time with app. 50 million Americans being underinsured or not insured is nothing more than a crime.
Democrats, make this your number one issue, especially after this story, Americans are for a universal, quality, affordable health care system.
Even independents and many republicans are for it.
Don't identity obsess, social engineer, ie 50%+ of CEOs must be women or as priority gay wedding cakes cases to the Supreme Court.
That helped serve us the ego maniac demagogue Trump on a platter in 2016.
6
NYT and authors: Please provide a link to the original report. While I assume this is another routine Census report, probably based on data from the American Community Survey or the National Health Interview Survey, I would like to know the source. If it is a routine report prepared by professional statisticians, the numbers are about as trustworthy and politically neutral as a weather forecast from the National Weather Service. If this is a special statement issued for a political purpose, like the NOAA statement supporting Trump's "Alabama" thesis, I would like to know that, too. Readers shouldn't have to be so suspicious, but these are not normal times. Besides, linking to sources is par for the course these days.
3
"Fewer Americans are living in poverty but, for the first time in years, more of them lack health insurance."
WOW. I find that is a pretty amazing and telling statistic. One possible reason could be that folks are spending their money on things they need TODAY to live, i.e., food, rent, utilities, gas, medications, toilet paper. Perhaps health insurance is viewed as something they can better afford down the road because today they feel okay.
16
@Marge Keller
The biggest reason is that premiums have skyrocketed, insurers have left marketplaces and people can't afford it because those subsidies aren't in place any more.
We knew all this was going to happen because the actuaries told us it was not a sustainable model because the subsides were going to end.
But of course the fairy tale of Obamacare was more important to the press than presenting the view of actuaries who are responsible for actually designing insurance policies.
7
@Viv
I agree that premiums have skyrocketed, which of course, is a primary reason why so many folks can't afford insurance rather than closing to merely not have insurance.
4
@Viv
"We knew all this was going to happen because the actuaries told us it [Obamacare] was not a sustainable model because the subsides were going to end."
**********
Which begs the question: What numbers aren't they heeding now on M4A?
2
You say we have a good economy. It's good if you are rich, it's good if you have a job that pays well, it's good to make some people very rich - even good enough to produce the richest man in the world. But it's not good enough for even him to pay all his workers a living wage. In it's present form it's not good enough to provide good healthcare even for all the employed people and it certainly fails for most of the unemployed. Yet other countries do a much better job or providing healthcare and living wages.
So what's so good about our economy? How can Republican efforts to limit what healthcare covers and who gets it be good for the economy?
16
The republicans had a beer party on the steps of the Capitol steps May of 2017 celebrating their new health care advantage.
It was a lie. Taxpayers paid for the beer.
The price of gas is up fifty cents a gallon and more than when Obama was in office.
6
The question, "Are you better off now than you were in 2016?" will define the 2020 election. Only a fool would say, "Yes." Trump has not written any legislation. He weakened the ACA to the point that it no longer functions as it once did. The only thing Trump has done to assure the continuation of Obama's robust economy has been to complain about the Fed chair he himself appointed. One cannot call any of this "leadership."
274
@John
Trump has continued to improve the economy, further reducing unemployment. He has given a tax cut to millions of middle Americans (yes, it's true) and he has passed landmark prison reform that is permitting inmates to end their sentences early
He is trying to tackle immigration, in the face of tremendous opposition from the media, democrats and even judges, and is finally tackling China. And then there are his efforts to get us out of Afghanistan.
I call that "doing the right thing", and have serious questions about Americans who refuse to acknowledge it.
13
@AACNY - The impact of Trump's tariffs have eroded any small benefit from Trump's temporary tax cut.
It really does help to pay attention.
66
@John Hey, my 401K (formerly 401 Nothing) is doing very well, and I did very well tax wise. As the Beatles wrote, "Money don't get everything it's true, what it don't get , I can't use. I want money." Money is freedom.
7
This means some deaths that did not need to happen....when people are not covered, they do not go to doctors regularly.
6
Let's hope that this isn't an ongoing trend
1
Life is no longer affordable yet alone health care. Personally my 58 years on this planet has taught me that some humans who were born in the right place at the right time believe they are better then the rest of us. As a result they get everything left as the planet they destroyed through their selective-ignorance collapses around all of us. Yes selective-ignorance on behalf of all humanities leaders has destroyed an entire planet and soon all it's life. Health Care won't matter when we can't go outside yet alone breath the air or drink the water.
7
Face it. The ACA, ("ObamaCare"), stinks.
The non-existent Republican plan will stink if if it ever materializes.
Here is MikeCare. It almost doesn't stink.
You know how the government pays to provide us with universal necessities like cops, education, libraries, road construction and repair, fire departments, snow removal, defense, garbage removal and the like? That's what we need in regard to medical care to make sure that everyone in the country, regardless of wealth or income, is covered. Just like with the other services medical services should be paid for using the taxes which we pay.
You go to whatever doctor you want, you pay a deductible to discourage frivolous medical visits, and the medical providers get paid according to a reasonable government schedule that is tailored to region. Medical providers who do not want to accept what the government is paying can do so by posting a notice in their offices to that effect. You either pay the difference or go elsewhere. In any event you get the best possible care which is what we all deserve.
What is the argument in favor of letting people get sick and die just because they are financially distressed? And that's the end of it. Welcome to the 21st Century! If it makes the prez feel any better call it "TrumpCare".
The government is not equipped to run what in essence is a giant medical insurance company so job it out to private companies to run, like FEMA does with flood insurance.
6
@MIKEinNYC
There are many places in the country where street lights and fire departments aren't covered by taxes and depend on individual homeowners to pay those fees separately.
And by the way, as people hit with hurricane damage can tell you, FEMA-approved insurance companies will not necessarily pay out a dime to help you.
Under the current tort system, if every medical facility was forced to accept Medicaid fees, at least half would close.
Note that every single country with some semblance of universal care prevents most patients from successfully suing doctors/hospitals and severely curtails financial penalties for malpractice.
2
How many Americans go bankrupt over health care bills ? And how many Europeans ?
33
Europeans can’t even conceive of the notion of going bankrupt or dying because you can’t afford healthcare.
How many Americans go bankrupt or actually die prematurely?
That number is impossible to calculate because not everyone wants to admit they couldn’t save their loved one because they didn’t go to the hospital in time. My cleaning lady’s husband died at home because they waited too long to bring him to the hospital because they were afraid of losing their house again.
How many Americans are dying, even with the ACA, (which is a sweetheart deal for the for-profit industry that removes resources from healthcare), for corporate greed?
This has to stop.
As Bernie says, enough is enough.
It is amazing how much quality of life Americans are willing to give up. Amazing how much adversity Americans are willing to take on!
But, it will be such an unimaginable relief not to let corporate greed ruin our lives any more.
6
@TonyC
How many Americans actually go bankrupt because of medical bills? It's much lower than democrats claim. It's actually something like 5%.
You really need to be careful when listening to politicians running for the presidency. They have been known to make things up.
5
@TonyC
They don't go bankrupt over healthcare bills.
They just go bankrupt because they're let go from their jobs as a result of their illness, and in many cases can't sue because of it.
2
This is one of the flies from which Trump has plucked the wings. Trump is no where near smart enough to have an actual, workable health care plan. That was one of his many lies. People are dying at the hands of the regressives, because of Trumpism. Vote.
4
So because I have no healthcare coverage and I need to go to the hospital, I guess my fellow American will pick up the tab or will the hospital even allow me to enter...nothing is free....nothing.
3
@BTB
And now because of Obamacare you have millions who pay thousands in premiums and out-of-pockets but cannot afford to go to the doctor. How is that fair?
4
Is anyone surprised?
This is an organized effort by Republicans, and it is working.
5
Gee, Trump repeatedly promised he’d give all Americans the best and cheapest healthcare. Ever.
10
Yeah, it was gonna be yuge.
@KittyP
He also last night again promised to protect pre-existing conditions while he's in court trying to kill the ACA which protects them. He lies more than any president in my long life.
Health insurance coverage diminishes for 1st time since 2014, the both sides edition.
For those who then fall ill and face medical bankruptcy (or worse) - disastrous; for those who retained coverage, ensuing increases in premiums attributable to covering the uncovered costs.
For the Trump administration, job done, take that libs! (TM - Best Health Insurance you've ever seen, you won't believe it!)
4
Another shameful mark of the Trump Administration merely for the sake of undoing Obama’s extraordinary attempts at health care for Americans who couldn’t afford it.
Yet, it’s completely okay for Trump to personally enrich himself with Federal dollars while Federal employees use his facilities under unconstitutional methods.
I have nothing but contempt for Trump and his utter greed while Americans lives and health are out at risk.
9
Don’t worry, those trying to destroy the ACA have a solution for everyone’s health care, wait, what?
4
I guess we will never see that "beautiful," less expensive health plan. This is a disgrace and inexcusable, but yet I shed tears only for those without health care who voted for Hillary and Democrats in Congress. The rest are reaping what they sowed.
4
Trump must go. His entire cabinet must go with him. McCONNELL must go. Cronyn must go. Graham must go. That's a good start, but the Republican Party, in general, must be purged of the corruption and inertia that plague it. Until, unless that happens, the national picture will only darken. Out with The Trumpists in 2020!
5
Yet more MAGA. So tired of all the winning.
5
Gee! I wonder why that happened?
Just Donny at work
1
Get a glass of wine and a comfy seat and let the GOP/Trump spin begin. You can be sure this isn't due to Dear Leader.
Another proud moment for the Republican party
1
Medical coverage is going in the wrong direction. Let's acknowledge that. This problem needs to be settled once and for all. Democrats must stand up and say they will dramatically change health insurance and then do it. After that broadcast that republicans will try to take it apart on behalf of their donors and hope that the American people get it.
Self-employed cannot afford basic plans that provide no services. Annual check up without insurance was less than $300 as cash pay. Not worth $18,000 in annual premiums and another $10,000 in deductible. $28K before any benefit - what a bargain!
6
"Median household income is only modestly higher now than when the recession began in late 2007 and is essentially unchanged since the dot-com bubble burst in 2000."
So, in effect there has not been a rise in median household income for 19 years. And now for something completely different: how do the profits of major corporations fare in those nineteen years?
53
@Dorota I have yet to see a billionaire begging for food on a street-corner. Hereditary oligarchy and democracy are mortal enemies--they cannot co-exist in any country.
1
In this 2018 Census report, for Texas those without health coverage increased from 17.3 % (2017) to 17.7%. (This is double the national rate). This statistic actually is misleading because most children in Texas already have CHIP coverage. For uninsured adults in Texas, the uninsured rate is probably in the low 20s.
7
Register for your state primary and vote for Bernie Sanders. And then in 2020 vote Blue. There is no Republican plan to fix or improve healthcare. None.
41
The drop in people with health insurance isn't surprising. This year, my wife and I will pay $11,000 for what is essentially catastrophic insurance. (Ooh, a "free" annual check-up!)
We have a solid income, but still debate every year whether to chance it and go without health insurance. Others like us who are wholly responsible for their insurance have obviously already made that decision, or have had it made for them by the ever-increasing premiums.
38
@Scott Douglas - Interesting. So you have a solid income but you debate the merits of sticking everyone else with your health care bills or risking bankruptcy rather than pay for health insurance?
8
@DR
Do you pay for health insurance without any government assistance?
3
@DR We barely use medical care. The debate is whether having insurance holds up to cost/benefit analysis. So far, the threat of bankruptcy from unexpected bills is enough to keep us paying.
I agree that members of society have obligations to one another, as your question implies. So I'll assume you take perfect care of yourself now so that you'll be less of a drain on the system when you're old.
10
Lower poverty rates are always good and President Trump will tout this as one of his successes. But what do the numbers really tell us?
The federal poverty rate for a family of four is $25,750. So if you are earning slightly more than that, say 30k a year you are officially no longer poor.
But let's look at some other figures; Over the last 30 years the median family income only increased by 14%. That's about 1.3% per year adjusted for inflation.
During that same period, the median housing cost rose 290%.
The cost of attending a public college rose 311%, and this increase is almost directly proportionate to the decease in state support for higher education.
In other words states financed their tax cuts to the wealthy by charging students and their families more.
And per person health care costs rose 51% over the last thirty years.
The substantial rise in the costs of basic household needs means that the average American is working longer hours, taking less vacation, being more productive and is getting sicker while doing so and is barely treading water.
But don't we all make these sacrifices so that our children can have a better life? Yes, we do, but upward social mobility in America has declined in the last 20 years.
And those 3.7% unemployment stats, they are really closer to 10% because they don't count people who have dropped out of the labor force or who have been forced from full time to part time work.
Life is much harder than these numbers indicate.
327
@Drspock where did you get your statistics from?
1
We need actual change.
7
@Drspock: everything you said, and thank you for speaking "truth to power" because the NYT lies on these issues to promote their lefty agenda.
I know at least 7 educated, degreed adults over 55 who are functionally or literally unemployed despite the recovery. All are computer literate and fully capable of work, but there is nothing for them in this economy -- the choice is "be a high tech or medical professional" or if you don't qualify for that...low paid, wretched jobs in retail, telemarketing, food service or home health aides. Or gig jobs, such as Uber. NONE OF THESE PAY A LIVING WAGE, nor offer health insurance.
16
If democrats can convince half the uninsured and their families to not vote for Republicans because of their stand on it, and if Dems can stop bickering about the best way how to insure, and settle for any way that is achievable, they they can gain a clean sweep in the next election.
Pleas do THAT!!
19
@Roger
This is a pocketbook issue and democrats have already stuck it to millions of Americans who have seen their insurance costs skyrocket under Obamacare. They clearly realize someone always winds up paying. Why would they believe democrats' claims now?
To date, it's only republicans who have listened to the complaints of Americans about Obamacare. First, democrats simply denied these concerns. Then they just came up with an even grander plan, in effect, doubling down on their Obamacare promises.
4
@AACNY - Too funny. What exactly have Republicans done for Americans other than make it even harder for them to obtain health care?
8
@DR
By removing the mandate, Trump removed the burden on millions of Americans to pay for something they couldn't afford to use.
Face it. Obamacare was a disaster. It expanded Medicaid, which accounted for over 80% of its enrollees, but destroyed the private insurance of millions of Americans in the process.
3
When are we ready to admit that the metrics that we use to evaluate the economy do not accurately reflect how well-off the average American is?
153
@Y: the problem is....whoever is in power, wants the stats to say "things are swell".
So both parties distort the truth.
5
@Y Just look at inflation measures - they exclude the cost of housing and since W have been adjusted by hedonic factors. The result is "troubling low inflation" - tell that to anyone who has rented a place or ordered a beer or done anything an average person has had to do (let alone pay for education) over the last 20 years
5
@Y The famous "these numbers look great but gee they do not tell the whole truth..." phrase when it is not your political party that owns them.
People without medical insurance become sick, just like the rest of us. People without medical insurance require medical treatment, just like the rest of us.
Unlike the rest of us, people without insurance wait until they are desperately ill and then turn to the emergency room where they are treated in the most expensive manner possible.
Just like the rest of us, people without insurance are handed huge medical bills. Those of us with insurance let our insurers pay, less the co-pays. But who pays for those without medical insurance?
Come on, you know who ends of paying: you and me! Whether through higher taxes, higher federal debt, or more expensive health insurance premiums, we end up paying for those without insurance. More people without insurance is just more people asking you and me to foot their bills!
74
@Bill
Hospitals are now suing people who cannot pay and taking them to court—and are winning: Repossessing cars, garnishing wages, etc. That people cannot afford treatments (and/or adequate insurance) seems criminal. The hospitals and health insurance system should be focusing on how to change so this doesn’t continue. What a mess.
5
@Bill
I'm afraid that you've been served a bill of goods.
It's not a new phenomenon that these patients names ho directly to bill collectors who will then garnish wages.
As a mom of three who had at the time health care insurance for my family, you could have papered the walls with the mail from bill collectors.
We already lived on the poverty line,
the garnishment drove us under and almost to homelessness.
This was 20 years ago.
I lived in constant fear that one of my kids would again take I'll.
1
This is just a bunch of numbers passing through a number system that tells us very little indeed about what the actual life style of the vast majority of Americans is like. Go to a store like Whole Foods and you will see numbers of old people working for very little money. Just try to imagine that among the enormously wealthy Americans. Why do we need to have these people. These ENORMOUSLY wealthy segment of the population. When does it stop? Will it stop? Will the enormously wealthy continue to climb upwards in income until they are ........
25
@Willy: it's hardly just Whole Foods. In fact, their staff is youngish.
It's Walmart, where both "greeters" and cashiers are often over 60 -- sometimes WAY over. I just chatted with a lady who appeared to be well into her 70s (I didn't ask) who told me she worked full time at Walmart, a grueling schedule with harsh, demanding supervisors -- for about $11 an hour -- because she could not survive on her meager SS check. Just her Medicare ($135) and her Medigap policy ($350) take most of her check, leaving her nothing for food or rent.
6
According to the NYT, 4.5% chose to pay the penalty in 2015.
Why blame Trump that so many Americans are voting with their feet? They chose not to pay insurance premiums for health care they cannot afford to access because of ridiculous benefit requirements and sky high out of pockets and premiums.
The only ones who have improved access under Obamacare are those who went on Medicaid or received federal subsidies, which pay for part of the premiums. For everyone above those income thresholds, it became unaffordable. If anything, Trump relieved them of being penalized for not buying something they couldn't afford.
13
@AACNY - So you're happy paying higher prices for health care to cover the ER visits for the uninsured?
9
If they get sick and can't afford treatment, someone else will pay for it. It's socialism.
The criticisms of PPACA are valid. But what we have now is its own form of unplanned, inefficient socialism.
5
@DR
The insured have always done this; Pre ACA. Every time your employer negotiates health insurance reimbursement costs with providers- particularly hospitals, the costs for uninsured individuals is factored in the negotiations and then passed on to you in they way of premiums during that dreadful "Annual Enrollment".
I don't think anyone is "happy" any more than vehicle policy insurance costs factor in the cost of those driving without insurance. We all pay costs for others; that is what a society does. School funding is payed by people without children, non drivers help pay for roads....That is society, my friend.
6
Insurance through Obamacare was always and still is too expensive. It covers almost nothing. It requires enormous deductibles and extremely high co-pays. But, I don't blame Obamacare. I am old enough to remember healthcare before it was privatized and made for profit. Insurance was affordable and covered many different illnesses and their tests. Healthcare providers weren't trying to scam patients with as many fees as possible. Though Obamacare tried to help, healthcare for profit made it almost useless. What use is being covered by insurance, if you can't afford to use it to stay healthy?
45
And don't forget that most doctors won't take an ACA plan. None of mine do, so why double dip and pay for both insurance and doctor's visits?
3
Preventive medicine is still covered -- checkups, some testing.
But remember, too, the coverage would be A LOT better if the GOP didn't fight it tooth and nail.
As with public ed, they count on people forgetting or overlooking the lengths they've gone to in sabotaging a program that will help anyone below the upper class.
So they've defunded, stripped, and mucked up these programs intentionally so they can claim:
see, it doesn't work, we need to privatize instead.
27
@TDHawkes
Obamacare had some serious consequences. Democrats denied these problems would occur. They wouldn't listen to critics. Obama just lied to everyone, mistaken believing Americans would be so thrilled with their new benefits they would be thanking the democrats afterward.
This kind of hubris created a blind spot for democrats that led to their bloodbath in that midterm election.
Fast forward to today. Democratic presidential candidates are making the same mistake. They refuse to discuss untended consequences honestly (ex., rationing, doctor shortages). They are making all kinds of promises.
Americans should be skeptical.
2
This news about fewer Americans with health insurance is a completely avoidable tragedy for the Americans suffering the additional consequences of coping with the costs of their health care needs with no safety net to help them.
Trump and the Republicans at every level of government must pay a political price for their role in systematically and deliberately taking health care away from those that can least afford the overpriced health care that Trump and the Republicans want to saddle all of America with.
Trump and the Republicans have no shame.
Trump and the Republicans have no compassion.
Americans have a RIGHT to receive the same healthcare as rich people whether they can afford it or not.
50
Did anyone research the skyrocketing insurance during 2017 and 2018? Perhaps that might account for people dropping out of plans despite the .4% wage increases (which does cover the cost of living increase). Here in the Northeast all the major insurance companies increased their Bronze plans by 15%. I know because I have had to switch plans every year for the pass 5 years. They cancel one policy and replace it by a more expensive Bronze plan.
And the sparkly "11.8 lowest in a decade" number sounds remarkable, but why does the NYT not mention the poverty rate has been on a steady 1% decline year over year for the past 25 years? Why doesn't the NYT prove the details like the poverty rates of Red States are stunningly high:
Mississippi 20.76%
Louisiana 19.03%
Kentucky 17.71%
Do better.
42
The Republicans gutted ACA subsidies and now they allow junk plans. Folks have to now meet income thresholds to qualify for the ACA. Underemployed and disabled folks can’t get on a plan. In Oklahoma, the Republicans refuse to expand Medicaid. So our state has some very sick folks without healthcare. I see this tragedy every day in my job.
216
So, OK re-elects James “snowball” Inhofe again and again and pays its public school teachers miserably. Competing with Mississippi for low quality of life. So much winning!!
5
@Don I agree. The media doesn't do a great job in measuring and reporting on these things. I wish Congress, similar to corporations, would create some sort of a score card that would standardize how we're doing and provide insight into why. NYT is all over the board on the report for jobs. There are several other metrics that could be included with unemployment, such as the number of people working more than 1 job, # of people working jobs without benefits, or the number of people that were receiving unemployment, but have stopped yet not employed OR have changed to receiving another form of government aid.
Regarding healthcare, premiums increased in 2017 and 2018 because insurers were anticipating Trump administration cutting funding to ACA.
Were these numbers provided by NOAA?
30
The entire US healthcare system is rampant with legally-facilitated consumer fraud. Each year, and with each attempt at reform, that fraud becomes more baked into the system, so that no one can protect themselves from overcharging by providers using byzantine tariff codes and indecipherable bills while insurers use intentionally hidden exceptions to escape and limit coverage. Coverage exceptions are virtually impossible to comprehend and impossible to control. Meanwhile, premiums continue to go up because insurers have no incentive to stem future price creep. Already the actual expenditures for healthcare in the US have grown to almost double those of economies in rest of the developed world, while the relative quality of care as compared to those same countries continues to worsen. And there is no hope of any kind of meaningful reform on the horizon. Americans are apparently clueless to this, as folks square off into opposing "libertarian" and "socialism" camps of policy utopianism. Meanwhile, the healthcare matrix slowly grows, deepening its roots into our pockets and taking over our lives. It is literally sickening.
Only in the United States. Is this really the best we can do?
87
@Retroatavist
I'm an American citizen and a resident of Canada. A few years ago I broke a quadriceps tendon while hiking in California. I was rushed to a hospital (which hospital depended on my insurance coverage) and immediately operated on. While I was there they insisted on some very expensive tests that had nothing to do with my condition. The final bill was $142,000 US, paid by my insurance after a year of wrangling. The equivalent cost in Canada with a similar level of care would have been about $35,000 and I would never have seen a bill.
The American medical system is a scam designed to separate people from their money in the most efficient way possible. It is no surprise that about 600,000 American go bankrupt every year due to medical cost, and more die. In all of western Europe and Canada combined, not one person goes bankrupt due to medical costs.
38
@Michael James: while I agree our system is deeply flawed….TRUST ME, sir, your insurance never paid $142,000.
That's just the sum your DEDUCTIBLE was based on. To gouge you!!!
The insurance company has sweetheart deals with every hospital, doctor, clinic, facility out there, so they pay a "secret" amount that is miles less than the "official" prices.
I'd reckon they paid something like $45,000 -- more than Canada, but not as much more as you imagine.
It's all a scam and a shell game done by con artist masters.
2
@Retroatavist: once again, with feeling...
THANKS OBAMA!
For taking a horrible terrible system....and managing to make everything 10,000 times worse!
1
Access to healthcare is decreasing, jobs are decreasing, the stock market is gyrating wildly, our foreign policy is a mess, formerly eradicated childhood diseases are making a comeback and Trump decides to pick a fight with John Legend and the National weather service.
146
Medicare participation increased.
What decreased were the number of people who can now opt without penalty.
6
@Dr. John
Yes, and when they go to the emergency room, we, the insured, will have our premiums increased in order to cover the costs of the uninsured. Anyone who opts out of buying health insurance should be compelled to forfeit emergency room care. Where is the Republican mantra of personal responsibility?
17
@Dr. John
DJ, I'm not sure I am following your calculus. Would that then imply that the number of people with insurance would increase?
1
@Dr. John and all that does is drive the cost of healthcare for the feast of us up.
1
This is exactly what the republicans want, no healthcare for Americans unless you have lots of money. I have yet to figure out how an unhealthy population benefits big corporations but I’m sure the republicans will have a plan for future cuts in healthcare for all Americans. All this from a Congress that has the very best womb to tomb health insurance coverage at taxpayers expense.
163
@William- While some people in corporations are indispensible, no one is irreplaceable. We are throw away people living in a throw away world. Corporations will find a way to dump someone in their 50’s who has worked for them for 30-years if it suits them. By the way, spouses will also do that. Out with the old and in with the new. That’s the way in this nation and in this world.
6
@William
" I have yet to figure out how an unhealthy population benefits big corporations..."
Putting myself in the shoes of the hard right (which I am not), it could be justified like this:
Poverty is a signal of poor genetics, poor choices, and lack of "God's blessings", therefore it is a necessary sloughing off of the lowest common denominator - a population that, thanks to the big sort, they do not have to interact with on any basis.
when you're merely a number on a spreadsheet it's easy.
6
one theory is that the Republicans are so against health care because they don't want minorities to have it. so they fight the ACA because it did strive to ensure everyone.
5
More evidence that single payer universal healthcare like Sanders' Medicare For All is absolutely necessary. Universal programs are nearly impossible to kill or water down - conservatives have tried killing social security for decades. In Canada and Britain universal healthcare is sacred. Once everyone is on the plan and receiving benefits it will be impossible to kill.
81
Hey ACA, could I get a plan with premiums that cost a fortune yet still requires a $7500 deductible? Thanks..
22
@Midwest Josh
There's a reason Obama quickly switched from "access" to "enrollees" as the measure of Obamacare's success. It became apparent very quickly to those who didn't qualify for Medicaid or subsidies that Obamacare had actually diminished their access.
6
@AACNY - How convenient of you to forget the part Republicans played in chipping away at the ACA.
26
@AACNY: ANYBODY who claims "they like or love the ACA/Obamacare"....if you ask, they are on 100% FREE Medicaid welfare.
I know people with millions in assets -- land, farms, trust funds -- who get 100% FREE Medicaid welfare because "they are poor on paper" -- they don't have jobs.
Of course, they do not NEED jobs, because parents or lovers or trust funds pay for all their needs. Meanwhile, they get about $14,000 a year in FREE HEALTH CARE -- while those of us without such luck must buy lousy worthless policies on the exchanges with HIGH DEDUCTIBLES.
Funny, how OBAMA never told us about the HIGH DEDUCTIBLES when he pushed for the passage of Obamacare....
Like Pelosi, we were asked to "pass the law before we bothered to read the law".....
This is what it means to have access but no means to pay for it. Health care should be universally accessible, like in all other industrialized country. No excuses.
258
@Lucas
If accessible means affordable then yes. Access to medical care, meaning it's available locally, means nothing if it will bankrupt you.
4
I am old enough to remember when a presidential candidate with a bad spray tan promised he had a great new health care plan, the best, believe me, many people are saying so. He would unveil it as soon as he took office and balanced the budget and defeated ISIS in his first month
Instead it was all lies. Republicans have no plan. They have only disruption and pain
523
@John, all will be revealed in his own good time. Along with his tax returns.
38
@John: Trump has no solution, but I never expected any from a TV reality show host.
At least he did not make things 10,000 times worse LIKE OBAMA.
Trump did remove the penalties for not buying lousy, worthless Obamacare, so that's something in and of itself.
2
@Concerned Citizen Can you please explain to me how Obama made "things 10,000 times worse"? If you read the article, it is noted that incomes were rising during his last few years after the Bush administration put us in a recession. If you mean Obama finally gave people with pre existing conditions access to healthcare or that my two children can stay on my healthcare policy until 26 is worse than what we had before, I'd really like to hear your perspective on this. Thanks in advance.
65
This clearly shows that the increase in jobs are in the “gig economy”...so no health benefits. This is why we need a national insurance program, so people can work whatever job they want and not have it tied to their health insurance coverage.
396
...and far more importantly, NOT have to kiss a law-breaking, poor-paying boss's [un-Fit to Print] to not die.
Sane healthcare allows workers to better consider the quality and ethics of their job over merely whether it gives them sufficient pay. Protests over other issues may even grow bigger and more representative, because workers won't have to worry that their boss, less receptive to supporting a protest than the people are, will inflict death by pink slip.
That's why bosses, their bosses in the vile GOP, and THEIR boss in Moscow loathe and fight it—and the EU, with their sane labor law and heroic GDPR—so very hard.
13
@AR Last night there was an interesting article in The Times about Bernie Sanders desire for universal healthcare via Medicare for All. It was taken down after a couple of hours due to the favorable comment viewpoints (in my opinion). Too bad The Times only put this article up for a few hours, because it demonstrated the need for universal healthcare and why Bernie supports it.
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@AR This is the bottom line, employer based coverage is incompatible with how the employment market currently works. Too many people are left without coverage. The ACA helped, but we need to do more. Being able to afford medical care is not a luxury item that should be based on your employment status or ability to pay.
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More proof that this administration's efforts are diametrically opposed to that of the well-being of Americans.
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@Kris Walz
But Obama who made health insurance unaffordable for those working (earning an income above a certain level) is some kind of hero? Excuse our skepticism.
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@AACNY
You're making stuff up. While it's true that the ACA is a half measure that doesn't really do the job, it has reduced the rate of growth in health care costs, if not the costs themselves. Health care would be even more expensive now without the ACA.
Of course, until we move to a national, universal, free-at-the-point-of-care system, we're at the mercy of insurance executives and Health Care conglomerates.
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@AACNY And what is the Republican plan?
Man up and speak up!
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