The Economic Impact of the Uninsured Abusing Health Care

The Economic Impact of the Uninsured Abusing Health Care
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The Economic Impact of the Uninsured Abusing Health Care
Introduction
One of the major policy issues among Americans in the 21s century is that of the high rate of the population that lacks health insurance. While the government has tried to come up with a universal health care for its citizens, there is still a high number of the population that does not have an access to any of the health care policies available. For this reason, the challenge of the uninsured has been a major issue of discussion with some using it as a political campaign tool while others have been genuine in trying to get a lasting solution. In the law four years, the Obama Administration has tried to design a universal health insurance for all people but this has brought in numerous economic challenges for the entire society. This paper examines the economic implications of individuals who are non-insured abusing the healthcare sector.
At the present, there are nearly 47 million Americans who are not covered in any of the available health insurance schemes (Cutler, & Reber, 2014). This group of individuals is inclusive of those with low incomes while a larger group consists of individuals from families that have incomes that are two times below the poverty line. However, not everyone without health insurance is from poor backgrounds as statistics show that close to 20% of those without any form of medical insurance have earnings above $50,000 per year. An even larger percentage of such families are headed by individuals who are fully employed but do not qualify for health insurance or do not find it necessary to have a medical cover. For this reason, the average person without insurance belongs to a group that is commonly known as the “working poor class” i.e. below average income, but not among the poorest in the country. As expected, this high number of uninsured individuals has a big economic impact on the economic especially when it comes to utilizing the healthcare services that do not require one to have health insurance (Cutler, 2004).
Why People are Uninsured
In order to establish the economic implications of being uninsured on the society, it is first important to establish the reasons why most people are uninsured. Ideally, the first world treats medical risks as the medical conditions that would cost an individual a high amount in terms of treatment if that person was taken ill. In an average model with concave utility, are more than willing to pay a good premium to get insurance for any sort of medical risks. This is, however, not true for many Americans at the present. One of the major reasons this is the case is the offering of implicit insurance through uncompensated care. Under the American constitution, any hospital that gets reimbursement from Medicare must offer treatment to people who have emergency cases regardless of whether they are able to meet the cost or not. Hospitals are given an opportunity to try and reclaim the cost of payment but in most case this kind of care ends up being uncompensated. This uncompensated care rose to nearly $30 billion in 2013 (Cutler, & Reber, 2014).
In order to deal with the proble...