Who needs health Insurance most and doesn't have it?

[FrenchieCat]

Who dies early from so many preventable deseases?

Here is an article by Ron Brownstein,
not someone I "Like" much at all,
but still he speaks some statistical facts,
and discusses the blind spot that some may have here at DU.
Ideologically, Those who can appreciate the lives of Afghans in Afghanistans,
and the lives of soldiers fighting, but not necessarily the 30 million
Americans who would be helped by the HCR bill that is currently waiting
to pass to go to conference, many of them minorities.

***
The latest annual Census Bureau figures show that in 2008 just 5.96 percent of college-educated whites lacked health insurance. For whites without a college education, the share without insurance jumps to 14.5 percent (the number is surely higher for non-college whites who are not union members). Among African-Americans, the share of those without insurance rises to 19.1 percent. Among Hispanics, the share of those without insurance soars to a daunting 30.7 percent, the Census found.

In his Washington Post op-ed Thursday, Dean wrote: "I know health care reform when I see it, and there isn't much left in the Senate bill." Yet the bill that Dean so casually dismisses would spend, according to the Congressional Budget Office, nearly $200 billion annually once it is fully phased in to help subsidize insurance coverage for over 30 million Americans now without it. That's real money--the most ambitious and generous expansion of the public safety net since the Great Society under Lyndon Johnson. And that money, based on the Census results, would flow most into minority and working-class white communities.

Minorities don't seem to have much doubt about their investment in this debate. In November's Kaiser Family Foundation health care tracking poll, two-thirds of non-white Americans said that their family would be better off if health care reform passes. Though the evidence suggests that non-college whites could also receive a disproportionate share of the bill's spending (since they constitute more of the uninsured), they are dubious: just one-third of them believe they would be better off, a reflection of the mounting skepticism about government such blue-collar whites are expressing across the board. Yet the most skeptical group is the college-educated whites, the same constituency that has the most access to health insurance today: only about one-fourth of them expect to be better off under reform...

...The broad mass of college-educated white voters are an increasingly central component of the Democratic coalition. But it remains a challenge for the party to manage the expectations of that community's most liberal segments because they tend to see politics less as a means of tangibly improving their own lives than as an opportunity to make a statement about the kind of society they want America to be. That is not a perspective that encourages compromise or pragmatism. It may be easier for Dean, and the activists cheering him on, to view the Senate bill as an affront to their values precisely because so few of their interests are directly at stake in the fierce fight over this imperfect but landmark legislation.
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/12/deans_blind_spot.php

[firedupdem]

1. Thanks for sharing this Frenchie....

Those who can appreciate the lives of Afghans in Afghanistans,
and the lives of soldiers fighting, but not necessarily the 30 million
Americans who would be helped by the HCR bill that is currently waiting
to pass to go to conference, many of them minorities.


Excellent point! I'm dissapointed in Dean. Is the bill perfect? Hell No...are any ever?

[Fire1]

2. MOST of them minorities. Good article. n/t

[angee_is_mad]

3. Put this in GDP

and it would go down so fast you would get whiplash.

You know white progressives know what is best for the democratic base, even if that base is getting sicker, and sicker.

Basically Progressives are telling people w/o health care just die until we can get a plan that WE WANT!

[Number23]

4. It was already posted in GD-P and got unrec'd so damn fast I think it was a DU record

I thought it was interesting that there was a person or two in the thread who posted that unfortunately the article was dead on. That they were white themselves but when they went out into the trenches and were actually doing the work for the Dem Party, that it was the blue collar workers, the non-college educated, and minorities that seemed to be the only ones with a good grasp of what was going on in the real world.

These posters characterized the white, college-educated workers who were there as naive and idealistic. As I've said time and time again, I'm all for idealism. But when it gets in the way of doing good work that actually helps people, the "idealistic" need to be put in check. That seems like what this article is trying to do but of course, it's falling on deaf ears.

[noiretextatique]

5. sorry, mandating purchase of insurance from private companies is not "reform"

the same people who are hurting now will continue to hurt with this so-called "reform". granted there will be more people who will have health insurance, but some of the same problems (e.g. so-called "micro insurance" that is virtually worthless) will continue to deny healthcare to millions.
let's hope we get a better final bill when this clunker passes in the senate.

[angee_is_mad]

6. Whatever

Whatever.

[noiretextatique]

7. wow...what a cogent, articulate, well-informed response

:sarcasm:

[FrenchieCat]

8. I've heard the various views........

and like you, I hope for a better final bill.

I do understand that there will also be preventative care
within a basic policy, and we all know that a whole lot of preventable conditions,
have to do with just that....and that is one of the reasons that
health insurance, regardless to how it is paid, is worth its weight in gold,
based on how our system operates, for the Black community.

I don't know how many I have met that wouldn't like nothing better than to have
health insurance......but they don't. They'd be willing to pay for it,
if it was affordable, regardless of who ends up making money.

So I am unable to conclude that this bill should be killed....

And of course, since many of us don't truly know what is in the bill,
a conclusion that drastic would be premature in anycase.

[Fire1]

10. I have to agree, Frenchie. I think ALL of us are hoping for a better

and more comprehensive bill and I don't really care WHO makes money.

[Number23]

9. Noire, tell me what you mean by this

but some of the same problems (e.g. so-called "micro insurance" that is virtually worthless) will continue to deny healthcare to millions.

What is micro insurance and how will it be used to deny healthcare?

I've read that 45 million Americans don't have insurance currently. Under this bill, 30 million more people will be insured and those with pre-existing condition will no longer be denied coverage. To me, this is HUGE. Are you saying that the 15 million who will not be covered by this bill will be denied coverage because of this "micro insurance?"

And like you, I hope we get a better bill too. In our private chats, I've told you about family and friends that are unable to purchase things they need because of a lack of health insurance. It breaks my damn heart.