Here are a couple of important posts from Think Progress as well as from the Center for American Progress regarding the newly releaed Census Bureau report on poverty and healthcare uninsurance in America.
Here are the report’s findings:
Health Insurance Changes:
• The number of uninsured increased to 46.6 million in 2005, 1.3 million more than in 2004 and 6.8 million more than in 2000.
• The rate of uninsured children rose for the first time in five years; 8.3 million children lacked health insurance in 2005, 11.2 percent of all children. Over one in five (20.5%) of non-elderly adults lacked health insurance in 2005, up by 6.8 million since 2000.
• The rate of employer coverage dropped between 2004 and 2005. Since 2000, over 3 million people have lost employer-based insurance. People who work full time were hard hit: a million more full-time workers were uninsured in 2005, despite the drop in the number of full-year, full-time workers. The rate of uninsured, full-time workers has increased by 13 percent since 2000.
• Workers in small firms were most likely to lose health insurance: the rate of workers covered by their own employers dropped by 6 percent from 2000 to 2005, compared to a 3 percent drop among workers in large (1,000 or more employee) firms. In 2005, there were more uninsured workers in small firms than workers actually covered by those firms (13.5 versus 13.0 million).
• Since 2000, this Administration has created over 3 times as many uninsured Americans as new jobs: 6.8 million uninsured versus 1.9 million new jobs between December 2000 and 2005.
• In 2005, for every wealthy family that got a tax cut due to 2001 and 2003 legislation, there were 160 uninsured Americans who struggled to afford basic health care. The amount of the tax cut for millionaires averaged over $100,000 – enough to buy health insurance for roughly 50 children, at an average total cost of $2,000 per child.
• The increase in the uninsured is nearly three times the increase in new homeowners (6.8 million new uninsured versus 2.4 million more home owners in 2005 than 2000).
Income and Poverty Changes:
• The failure of wage and salary increases to cover inflation has meant a real reduction of median income between 2000 and 2005 of 2.7 percent for households.
• Through 2004, median incomes fell in each year since 2000 – falling by over $1,800. The increase of $509 in 2005 only makes up a fraction of this overall loss. While the recession in 2001 caused the majority of the overall drop, median income had continued to decline even after the official end of the recession
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• The decline in workers’ real income was especially pronounced for full-time, year-round workers. For men, median incomes fell by $774 from 2004-2005 and for women, median incomes fell by $427. Incomes in this group fell to their lowest levels since 1997 for men, and lowest level since 2000 for women.
• The number of people in poverty has increased by 5.4 million since 2000, the number of children in poverty has grown by 1.3 million, and the poverty rate is up by 1.3 percentage points. The overall poverty rate was 12.7 percent in 2004, and 12.6 percent in 2005, which the Census Bureau indicated reflected no statistically significant change.
• The share of Americans living in extreme poverty – with incomes less than 50 percent of the poverty line – remained unchanged at 5.4 percent in 2005, compared with 4.5 percent in 2000. The number of Americans living in extreme poverty – 15.9 million – has grown by 3.3 million since 2000, and is now at its highest level since 1993.
• While poverty rates for most groups remained essentially flat in 2005, the poverty status of children in female-headed families deteriorated further. Among related children in female-headed families, the poverty rate rose from 41.9 percent to 42.8 percent between 2004 and 2005, compared with 40.1 percent in 2000. While the Administration has repeatedly highlighted the successes of welfare reform, the poverty rate for children in female-headed families is now at its highest since 1998.
In the past 30 years, the costs of healthcare have soared in the United States. Due to rapidly escalating healthcare costs, Americans in ever increasing numbers have begun to search for alternatives that could reduce their personal out-of-pocket medical expenses. In the last few years, hundreds of thousands of Americans have chosen to become Medical Tourists.
Cost of medical and surgical procedures in Mexico is very low compared to what is paid in the United States. In most cases, the savings from their medical treatment can give people extra money for vacation. Indeed, a patient and his/her family can take a luxury vacation in a Mexican resort and pay for the trip with the savings they receive on getting their procedures in Mexico. Medical Tourism in the city of Guadalajara can certainly be a win-win proposition. While taking care of health needs at big discounts, shopping sprees, sight-seeing, cultural pursuits, and trips to nearby beaches and spas can all be arranged around a medical appointment schedule.
For more information contact http://www.surgicalcareinternational.com