TALKING WITH THE MEDIA ABOUT THE UNINSURED

Eight out of ten uninsured Americans are in working families.  Low-income workers not offered insurance from their employers, often fall through the cracks between unaffordable private health insurance and limited existing public programs.  Without access to health coverage, working families are forced to delay or forgo much-needed health care.  Existing public programs must be expanded to provide a solid lifeline for the uninsured.

Existing Public Programs Must be Expanded:

• Because of extremely low eligibility levels, more than four out of five low-income, uninsured adults are ineligible for Medicaid or other public health coverage.  In fact, nearly half of all states a parent in a three-person family working full-time at minimum wage ($5.15 per hour) is considered to have too much income to qualify for Medicaid.
• In 40 states, non-parent adults-even if they are penniless-are ineligible for Medicaid, unless they are severely disabled.
• Expanding existing public programs, such as Medicaid and SCHIP, will significantly reduce the number of uninsured Americans.

Individual Tax Credits Offer no Real Choices to the Uninsured:

• In most individual tax credit proposals, the amount of the tax credit is far too small to make health coverage affordable for low-income working families.
• With individual tax credits, low-income uninsured workers will either find health premiums in the individual market unavailable or unaffordable.  Often the only plans made affordable by an individual tax credit are Swiss cheese-type policies that have more holes than cheese.

The Dangers of Moving Toward an Individual-Based System:

• Employers gain the benefit of economies of scale and, therefore, can offer health coverage cheaper than an individual can purchase on his or her own.
• The employer-provided health system protects workers with health conditions.  Employers provide the same health coverage, at the same cost, to their workers irrespective of health status.
• In the individual-based system, the elderly or those people in less than perfect health will be denied health coverage or forced to pay high, discriminatory premiums.

November 2003