Many times (here, for example), you scoffed at the figures that detailed the number of uninsured in this country. You seemed to think that the numbers included anyone who was not insured at some point in a given year. From the Census Bureau’s latest report on uninsured, which indicates the number rose from 44.8 million in 2005 to 47 million in 2006:
“People were considered “insured” if they were covered by any type of health insurance for part or all of the previous calendar year. They were considered “uninsured” if they were not covered by any type of health insurance at any time in that year” Exactly the opposite of what you thought. http://www.census.gov/...ferences/010500.html
Have you done any digging into this? I was looking to see what populations where included etc. Was wondering if the total included illegal immigrants or if there was any effort to compensate for that population.
I did find a map that showed distribution higher/lower than US average and with the exception of Alaska and Montana all “higher than US average” states were South and mainly South west.
Something else I found interesting was a chart showing “Percent of uninsured” Seems we’ve gone from around 13% to 15.3% in 20 years. Granted not a good trend, but why suddenly the massive panic over the “uninsured” population? I would have expected a much larger gap and why hasn’t something been addressed about the issue before now? This problem appears to be being handled like our “Energy crisis” problem has been since the mid seventies. Everyone knows about it but does nothing. then the media “shines the light” and then the politicians turn it into a “crises”.
Are you sure these changes are apples to apples? A quick glance shows that this is the first year prisons, college dorms, nursing homes and military barracks are included.
I don’t imagine there are too many insured prisoners. I don’t know about nursing homes, but the residents are obviously getting care. I don’t know if the military qualifies as insured or not, though I imagine they do.
I couldn’t find any reference to the treatment of illegals, but I don’t want to read the whole thing since I would like to pretend to have a life. My guess is that they are included and almost always not covered.
7.1 percent non citizen household per one of the footnotes. If they are all uninsured, which is unlikely but probably close, that would be about half of the uninsured in the country.
Are you sure these changes are apples to apples? A quick glance shows that this is the first year prisons, college dorms, nursing homes and military barracks are included.
I don’t imagine there are too many insured prisoners. I don’t know about nursing homes, but the residents are obviously getting care. I don’t know if the military qualifies as insured or not, though I imagine they do.
I couldn’t find any reference to the treatment of illegals, but I don’t want to read the whole thing since I would like to pretend to have a life. My guess is that they are included and almost always not covered.
The point was that Vitus thought the 44 million figure bandied about was misused, as he thought that it included anyone who was uninsured at any point during the year, when in fact the reverse was true. The point was not whether the number went up or down, or whether appropriate sets of the population was included, it was about the methodology used to determine the number.
If you want to change the subject (as you often do), I won’t bother following along. I had information for vitus (and others who were interested) that satisfied his (un)certainty.
Where did you find that? Also did it show any “historical” data on previous “uninsured” “non citizens”? If the uninsured non citizens is climbing, then the actual uninsured, citizens may not be all that different from 20+ years ago, lower maybe?
**7.1 percent non citizen household per one of the footnotes. If they are all uninsured, which is unlikely but probably close, that would be about half of the uninsured in the country. **
Drilling further, it shows 13.2% uninsured among those born here, and 45% among non citizens. About 34,000,000 uninsured who were born here and over 10,000,000 uninsured noncitizens.
Also interesting is that this would imply about 22,000,000 noncitizens here, though obviously not all illegal.
9,000,000 of the uninsured have a household income over $75,000. That is also interesting.