Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Health care for 988,000 more in N.C.?

One nonprofit, nonpartisan consumer group is in the thick of the fray over health-care reform with a new report saying the Senate Health Care Bill will expand coverage to 988,000 North Carolinians by 2019. The Families USA report, based on Congressional Budget Office data, also says that, without health reform, 254,000 people in North Carolina will lose health care coverage by 2019.

In 2007 and 2008, the average number of uninsured in North Carolina was 1,466,000, but the total will rise to 1,720,000 if the bill fails to pass, the report said. Nationally, the number of uninsured will reach 54 million in 2019 in the absence of comprehensive health insurance reform.

Each state stands to gain from the passage of health reform, the report said. Passing the Senate’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will not only extend coverage to millions of Americans, but it will also help bolster the economy, increase the stability and security of coverage, and moderate the rise of health insurance premiums.

To read the report, “At a Crossroads: Is health Coverage Ahead for America?”, go to http://www.familiesusa.org/assets/pdfs/health-reform/at-a-crossroads

2 comments:

Manos said...

This happy picture assumes that

1) the funding of the Health Care Bill is constitutional (the fee for no action)
2)That law makers will in the immediate future cut medicare benefits to pay for the bill
3) that the US will continue to be able to borrow money at massively high levels compared to GDP

None of the above 3 are likely. So even in the bill passes, it is very hard to say that in ten years many more, or any will have insurance. It's just as likely that less will.

Anonymous said...

The main way the bill insures thousands more people is by forcing them to buy insurance. And that's unconstitutional. The federal government cannot tell citizens that they MUST purchase something.