Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Inadequate Health Insurance Looms, Pt.3 – A day in the life…how bad is it?

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So how bad is having inadequate health insurance?  Nancy Davenport-Ennis is chief executive with the Patient Advocate Foundation.  They are a Virginia-based nonprofit group who provide aid for the most extreme chronic cases.  The situations they deal with are often life-threatening and debilitating.  In her years of experience Nancy describes it this way “We actually found that an underinsured consumer has a tougher time getting to resources than a completely uninsured consumer."  Because these people have health insurance, no other group will help them.  If their inadequate health insurance won’t cover necessary treatments, then these people have no choice but to go without it.

That’s certainly not the only problem.  Even now most Americans either don’t give sufficient thought to their vulnerability to financial disaster or else they simply can’t afford adequate health insurance.  Then comes the day where just one expensive medical episode will easily wipe them out and drive them into bankruptcy.  This is the most common cause of personal bankruptcy in our nation today.  If their health insurance is inadequate, they can immediately be driven into financial distress.  According to Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, in many cases they are in worse shape then the ‘uninsured’.

Are these just isolated cases?  At one time they were.  But just from 2000 to last year, the numbers have jumped a full 60%.  42% of that is from 2003 forward.  As of last year the number of Americans with inadequate health insurance had climbed to 25 million, but the trend is accelerating.  For a more complete understanding of the seriousness of this problem, please refer to the article series’ entitled:.”Health Insurance Still Plummeting “, “Hidden Dangers of Inadequate Health Insurance” and  “Major 'Underinsured' Sector”.

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