According to a new study on healthcare costs, it would take $123 billion dollars, or an additional 5 percent in national health spending, to cover the uninsured.
The study, released August 25 by the Kaiser Family Foundation's Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, found that the uninsured will spend $30 billion in out-of-pocket expenses for healthcare in 2008 while receiving $56 billion in uncompensated care. Three-quarters of the uncompensated care will come from government sources, the study said.
The findings were published in a Web-exclusive article in Health Affairs and authored by Jack Hadley of George Mason University and John Holahan, Teresa Coughlin and Dawn Miller of the Urban Institute. The study is an update of a previous Kaiser study and does not assess how much a universal coverage plan would cost the government.
According to the study, the uninsured receive less than half as much care as the insured in a given year and pay 35 percent, or $583 out-of-pocket, towards their care. The average uninsured person receives $1,686 worth of care per year.
A different study released last month by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) shows U.S. healthcare costs should approach $2.4 trillion this year.
With the start of the presidential conventions, talk of healthcare reform is getting a lot of attention. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) appeared last night at the Democratic National Convention in Denver to promote not only Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president, but to champion healthcare for every American "as a right, not a privilege."
Do you think America will find a way to successfully contain healthcare costs and provide care to everyone? Email your thoughts to Senior Editor Diana Manos at diana.manos@medtechpublishing.com.