Soaring Costs, Plummeting Enrollment: Healthcare Under Bush

The ranks of the uninsured in America ‘only’ jumped by 1.5 million last year, perpetuating a trend that began with Bush’s first term in 2000.

The reason is simple: since 2000, the cost of healthcare insurance has risen by 78%. Wages, on the other hand, have only risen by 20%. And just as importantly, the percentage of companies offering health insurance has dropped from 69% to 61%.

Under Clinton, there were 39.8 million uninsured Americans (a disgrace in itself) but under Bush, that number has swollen to 46.6 million in 2006. The cost to the country… unimaginable. (A 2001 study by HealthAffairs.org revealed that healthcare for the uninsured cost over $98 billion – although unable to locate more recent figures, I assume that number to have ballooned as the cost of healthcare and the number of uninsured have soared.)

The total cost of health insurance for individuals now averages $4,242 a year. For families, the costs average a staggering $11,480. (Bear in mind that the poverty line for a family of four is $20,000, gross, and that 37 million people in the United States live below that poverty threshold.)

Meanwhile, Bush and his gang of crooks made it harder to file for bankruptcy, under heavy pressure from the credit card companies. The fact that unexpected and exorbitant medical bills are the number one reason for filing bankruptcy didn’t manage to persuade Bush that this was just a tad unfair. Naturally, bankruptcy filings are now at an all-time high. (And remember, every time one of those victims files for bankruptcy, premiums go up for the rest of us.)

The fact that 1 in 6 Americans has no health insurance is nothing short of a national disaster. To take just one example of how unfair the system is, one study found that among Americans diagnosed with colorectal cancer, those without insurance were 70 percent more likely than those with insurance to die over the next three years. (Source – NY Review of Books.) So if you're uninsured... tough luck.

Are we, as a people, so married to the concept of the free market economy that we would have it continue to ruin our healthcare system?