Personal Loans and Insurance

Aug. 25--The U.S. Census Bureau are slated to make known their annual estimation of the figures regarding the number of people without health insurance which is released annually, on Tuesday. It is expected that this figure will become a major issue in the upcoming elections.

It is expected that the U.S. Census Bureau figures and estimates will conflict with the those of two other main surveys also performed by the federal government as well as surveys carried out by Wisconsin and other states.

In reality there is really no actual figure of how many people in the United States are without health insurance.

What is known however, is that the number is big, and that it is still growing.

The several surveys may differ in size and methodology, but they all have come to the same conclusion that in access of 30 million people have been uninsured for at least one full year. At any given point in time, millions more are found to be uninsured.

But it is the characteristics of this group that are more important than the number of people reported as being uninsured. It can be said that the uninsured as a group are far from being homogenous. This means that any one policy designed expand coverage may work for some people, but not for others.

The director of the Health Research Program at the Employee Benefit Research Institute in Washington, D.C., Paul Fronstin says that it is difficult to come up with a one-size-fits-all solution.

Most of the uninsured – some estimate it as being more than half -- are those who simply are not able to afford health insurance. Most of these people work in low-wage jobs, and surprisingly today they increasingly include middle-class families.

Still others don't have access to affordable insurance, or any insurance at all for that matter, because of their previous and existing medical conditions, such as heart disease or diabetes, or they may have had cancer or another serious illness.

Included in the group of the uninsured are also those people who are without coverage, but only for a short period of time. It also includes children who may be eligible for state health programs like BadgerCare Plus but who are not being enrolled, along with young adults who don't value health insurance. Also there are the illegal immigrants. Surprisingly, also included are families with incomes of more than $75,000 a year.

There are different reasons why people lack health insurance. Tom Miller who is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a policy research organization in Washington, D.C. says. According to Miller, there are multiple solutions that need to be applied. A sweeping type of solution according to him, tends to obscure the parts of the problem.