If we do eventually end up making health insurance mandatory, would that do the trick in terms of achieving the goal of universal health insurance coverage? Anthony Wright, at Health Access WeBlog, has written an article about potential blocks in the road to universal health insurance coverage, including issues surrounding the enforcement of a mandate, and the problems presented by undocumented immigrants. Anthony points out that although there is currently a mandate that drivers carry liability auto insurance, about 15% of drivers do not comply. A similar problem could occur with health insurance, but the major difference would likely be government subsidies. As far as I know, there are no government subsidies to help people afford auto insurance. But nearly every health care reform article I’ve seen over the last year or so has included mention of government subsidies to help people pay health insurance premiums. Recently, I’ve seen reports that subsidies are being considered for families earning up to $88,000 a year. That is a lot of money, folks. If you’re earning more than $88,000 a year, paying for health insurance shouldn’t really be a problem.
As of 2007, Colorado ranked 33rd in the nation in terms of percentage of working age adults (18 – 64) without health insurance. One in five working-age adults in Colorado is uninsured. My guess is that the majority of those people would love to have health insurance – if they could afford it. Most people want health insurance. And most of the people who don’t have insurance cite cost as the main reason. There’s also the issue of pre-existing conditions and medical underwriting in the individual health insurance market, but this is a much smaller chunk of the uninsured population than the group that simply can’t afford the premiums. I believe that a mandate combined with premium assistance/subsidies would make a dramatic dent in the number of uninsured Americans.
I found Anthony’s article in the Health Wonk Review, hosted this week by Tinker Ready. And it’s got a Springsteen theme, which makes even the best article even better. I was singing along in my head the whole time I was reading the HWR…
