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Panel Highlights Importance Of Medical Insurance During Recession

Posted on: Tuesday, 24 February 2009, 16:00 CST

The U.S. Institute of Medicine released a report on Tuesday saying more Americans will lose their health insurance as the economy weakens, health care becomes more expensive, and fewer employers offer coverage, Reuters reported.

New research even suggests that when local rates of uninsurance are relatively high, even people with insurance are more likely to have difficulty obtaining needed care and to be less satisfied with the care they receive.

Written by a committee of experts in medical care, emergency medicine, health policy, business, economics, and health research, the report provides an independent assessment of published studies and surveys as well as newly commissioned research on the impacts of lack of coverage.

The report said safety-net services like charity care and hospital emergency rooms cannot be relied upon to meet the needs of people without insurance.

The institute, consisting of an independent research organization that advises U.S. policymakers, urged the White House and Congress to take immediate steps to ensure all Americans have coverage.

The government says 45.7 million Americans, or 15 percent, had no public or private health insurance in 2007.

The Obama administration is holding a summit on health care next week. The president has stated that reducing health-care costs was critical to the economy. Obama is expected to discuss his health-care goals during his address to a joint session of Congress later on Tuesday.

Lawrence Lewin, a health care consultant who led the institute panel, said the evidence clearly shows that lack of health insurance is hazardous to one's health, and the situation is getting worse because of the erosion of employment-based health coverage due to the current economic crisis.

The nation is projected to spend $2.5 trillion on health care this year, compared to $912 billion in 1993.

The majority of private health coverage in the United States comes from employer-provided insurance, with an estimated 160 million Americans getting their insurance this way.

However, the report shows that rising health care costs are making it increasingly tough for employers to offer health insurance coverage to their workers. The panel found that many employers have replaced permanent, full-time jobs with contract, part-time and temporary jobs without health benefits.

The panel said that many employees are even declining health insurance because they cannot afford the premiums. The panel found that the average annual employee premium contribution for family coverage rose from $1,543 to $3,354 between 1999 and 2008.

"The lack of health insurance coverage for tens of millions of Americans cannot be ignored and should not be a chronic underpinning of American health care -- it is in fact treatable and indeed preventable," the panel wrote.

It warned that the fiscal crunch threatened to undermine public health care programs. The panel said that with the recession and rising health costs, some states would be unable to sustain recent expansions of programs for low-income children and adults.

The panel of experts in health economics and policy said increases in unemployment will further fuel the decline in the number of people with employer-sponsored coverage and put additional stress on state Medicaid and children's health insurance programs.

People without health insurance often wait longer to get important medical care, running up larger bills in the end, it said. Chronically ill, uninsured adults delay or forgo checkups and therapies, including medications and are more likely to be diagnosed with later-stage cancers that could have been detected earlier.

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On the Net:

• Institute of Medicine

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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