Number Of Uninsured Decreases, Number Of Underinsured Increases

More people are receiving health insurance, but coverage still leaves lots of insured individuals and families without adequate health care as good health insurance is not affordable to many.

Commonwealth Fund conducted a study of US residents under 65 in 2007 who had purchased health insurance at least during the past year. The data of people with health insurance was compared with similar data collected and analyzed in 2003 and found that 25 million Americans were underinsured in 2007, compared to 16 million Americans in 2003.

The people who were paying 10% of their income for health care purposes were considered underinsured. Low income adults were considered underinsured if health care payments accounted for 5% of their income.

The study found that underinsured individuals with chronic diseases frequently skip necessary health care procedures and underinsured Americans who receive hospital care because of accidental diseases are not ale to pay for healthcare because of high premium rates.

Currently there are about 50 million Americans without health insurance coverage, and Government is actively providing affordable health insurance to as much individuals and families as possible. However, the report shows that those individuals that have health insurance, mostly low or middle income families, still lack adequate health care, and it urges the need of improving health insurance quality and making good health insurance coverage more affordable.

Employers also benefit from employees regularly taking prescriptions and seeing doctors because regular health care for those with chronic conditions is more affordable than hospitalization of patients who skip regular drug intakes. Some major companies require every employee with a chronic condition to take medications regularly. Apart from medical costs, employers also benefit from healthy workers, those who receive medical care on time, because these people's work is more effective and less risky.

Commonwealth Fund report urges the need of creating an entire health care system which will work properly for everyone. The fund urges the need to regulate all aspects of health care system together: health care costs must be decreased, payments process for health services must be improved, more IT technologies must be involved in health care system to improve quality. Government has to improve quality of affordable health insurance for all families with various income rates, but not to just cover them.