Each year the Census Bureau prepares a report on the number of uninsured for the previous calendar year.  The 2005 report released in August of 2006, indicates out of 293,834,000 there are only 46,577,000 people uninsured in this country, or 15.9% of the population. http://www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/p60-231.pdf

15.9% of the population seems a relatively low figure, until you dig deeper.  

The Census Bureau report breaks the number of insured into two sections; private coverage and government coverage.

Private coverage includes employees who have medical insurance plans through their employers, through their unions, or have purchased health insurance policies from private companies. 

Government coverage includes people covered by Medicare, Medicaid, Military Health Care (Champus/Tricare, ChampVA, Department of Veterans Affairs and those in the military), SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program) and individual state health plans. 

Medicaid is a federal program that provides medical coverage to many groups of people who otherwise would not be able to afford medical treatment. Many factors, including age, pregnancy, disability, income and resources are involved in determining Medicaid eligibility and the rules for counting income and resources vary from state to state and from group to group. In addition, there are special rules for people in nursing homes and for disabled children living at home. 

Health insurance is a type of insurance where the insured pays a premium for coverage, and the insurer pays the medical costs if the insured person becomes sick or injured.  While Medicare recipients fall into this category due to premiums paid by some for Medicare Part A, and Part B, Medicaid recipients do not. 

Therefore, if we take the 47 million [46,577,000] that we know are uninsured, and add the 38 million [38,134,000] that we know have Medicaid coverage we’re already up to 85 million without actual health insurance (84,711,000).  

If we add to that the number of veterans who are treated at VA facilities and are not charged co-payments due to falling into a low-income category, and add ChampVa beneficiaries and other groups that do not pay actual premiums for medical coverage, we are well over the 100-million mark. 

There is little doubt in the correlation between income and insurance coverage when you look at the following statistics.  With each rise in family income, the number of uninsured people decreases.

Data Source: U.S. Census Bureau 

*“ill-housed, ill-fed and ill-clothed” is from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s, January 11, 1944 State of the Union Address to Congress as follows: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=16518

“It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known.  We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people – whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth – is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill housed, and insecure.”

Insecurity is running rampant in our country.  People haven’t caught on yet, but along with almost no increase in wages in the last ten years, health insurance premiums have almost doubled.  People have actually been taking cuts in pay in order to stay insured.

But, it’s even worse than that.  With millions of jobs being exported during this period and an expanding number of immigrants who often work for below minimum wage, the squeeze on the middle class grows more critical each day.