Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Finding Answers About the Uninsured, Pt.5 – Advice and other segments

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Senior health care advisor for the National Federation of Independent Business, Dr. Robert Graboyes, offers this advice: "the best way to expand coverage is to lower the cost of care and insurance." "We can do so through better pooling arrangements, fewer tax biases in insurance markets, and stronger incentives for preventive care and consumer choice," he suggests. Still another significant diverse segment of those without health insurance is the “Diverse Segment” itself. One of the major subsegments within this segment is the immigrants. They number about 12.6 million. This represents about 27% of the whole 47 million without health insurance. Of the total non-citizen foreign-born residents, around 45% of them have no health insurance. There are several reasons for this, of course. Not only is low income a large factor, but culture is also a major factor. Most of these immigrants come from societies that do not emphasize buying health insurance. To compound this, these immigrants can’t get public subsistence for health insurance for the first five years after becoming legal residents.

Another subsegment of the “diverse segment” are those who are healthy and still young. These are aged between 18 and 34. This is a very large subsegment numbering around 19 million people without health insurance. With a confidence they won’t need it, they can’t justify the expanse of today’s health insurance premiums. They simply pay-as-they-go for incidental medical needs. This is further exacerbated with employer-based health insurance costing more for premiums in order to sustain a risk pool where they are averaged with the older and more sickly who typically have the higher incomes and can afford them better.

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