{"id":159,"date":"2003-09-30T07:47:30","date_gmt":"2003-09-30T11:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/wordpress\/?p=159"},"modified":"2003-09-30T07:47:30","modified_gmt":"2003-09-30T11:47:30","slug":"of-uninsured-rose-by-24-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=159","title":{"rendered":"# of Uninsured Rose by 2.4 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ranks of the uninsured swelled<\/a> by 2.4 million last year as insurance costs kept rising and more Americans lost their jobs and health care coverage. <\/p>\n

The number of people without health insurance the entire year rose to 43.6 million, a jump of almost 6 percent from 2001 and the second consecutive annual increase, the Census Bureau (news<\/a> – web sites<\/a>) said in a report being released Tuesday. The percentage of Americans without health coverage rose from 14.6 to 15.2. <\/i><\/p>\n

Tommy Thompson pointed to relatively unchanged numbers among uninsured children apparently suggesting there wasn’t room for improvement and that parents taking ill is not a worrisome issue.<\/p>\n

The WH cited $89 billion in health care tax credits to help those who do not have employer-based coverage, as ways to get more people covered. <\/i><\/p>\n

I’m no economist but how will a tax credit help someone who isn’t working? And if I’m on unemployment and money is tight, the choice between keeping the lights on and paying an insurance premium is no contest. <\/p>\n

The article also cites consumer spending up in July and August as an indication the economy is ‘growing’ thanks to George’s tax cuts. Isn’t it always up in those months, getting kids back to school, vacations..etc.. As the article goes on to report, all groups except for children and the elderly, and households at all income levels except for those making less than $25,000 a year, had increases. So did people of all educational levels except non-high school graduates.<\/i> <\/p>\n

That does not indicate a positive trend to me.<\/p>\n

The NYT’s<\/a> reported on September 3 that George was easing the ER rules again, allegedly in response to a gaggle of health care providers complaining, among other things, that people who present to the ER seeking ‘free care’ are driving up costs.<\/p>\n

Forcing them to suffer on the street or delaying treatment to the point of drastic measures will grow the economy?<\/p>\n

Included in the rushed legislation<\/a> to approve the $87 billion in Iraq funding is this:<\/p>\n

In a nod to Majority Leader Bill Frist’s home state of Tennessee, the legislation mentions that the appropriations panel strongly supports an emergency health care effort for children run, in part, by the Vanderbilt University Children’s Hospital, which has been providing the services for free.<\/i><\/p>\n

As a doctor, Mr. Frist should know that preventitive care would go a long way towards keeping the costs of such a program down, not to mention make for healthier children. Keeping their parents healthy should also be a priority in any discussion of children’s health in general. Health care legislation should be taken out of the hands of people like Frist who are only looking for campaign lipstick not real reform.<\/p>\n

Update: So much for ‘consumer confidence’<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The consumer confidence index fell to 76.8 in September from a revised 81.7 in August, the Conference Board reported Tuesday. This is the lowest level of confidence since March. The sharp decline was unexpected. The consensus forecast of Wall Street economists was for consumer confidence to slip to 80.7 in September. “The lack of improvement in labor market conditions continues to dampen consumers’ spirits,” said Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board’s consumer research center. The expectations index fell to 88.4 in September from 94.9, while the present situation index fell to 59.5 from 62.0.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ranks of the uninsured swelled by 2.4 million last year as insurance costs kept rising and more Americans lost their jobs and health care coverage. The number of people without health insurance the entire year rose to 43.6 million, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-2z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}