NO HEALTH INSURANCE? - YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

HOW MANY AMERICANS DON'T HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE?
Read this and check the link to find out!

Health Insurance Coverage: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, January–September 2010


Highlights
 From January through September 2010, 49.5 million persons of all ages (16.3%) were uninsured at the time of interview, 60.8 million (20.0%) had been uninsured for at least part of the year prior to interview, and 36.1 million (11.9%) had been uninsured for more than a year at the time of interview.
From January through September 2010, the percentage of children under age 18 years who were uninsured at the time of interview was 8.2%.
Private coverage decreased among near poor adults aged 18–64 years, from 52.6% in 1997 to 34.6% in the first 9 months of 2010.  The uninsured rate (43.9%) is higher than the private coverage rate (34.6%) for this population.
From January through September 2010, 59.1% of unemployed adults aged 18–64 years and 23.5% of employed adults in this age group had been uninsured for at least part of the past year. Also, 36.4% of unemployed adults aged 18–64 and 15.0% of employed adults in this age group had been uninsured for more than a year.
During the first 9 months of 2010, 24.9% of persons under age 65 years with private health insurance at the time of interview were enrolled in a high deductible health plan (HDHP), including 7.4% who were enrolled in a consumer-directed health plan (CDHP). Almost 50% of persons with a private plan obtained by means other than through employment were enrolled in a HDHP. An estimated 20.0% of persons with private health insurance were in a family with a flexible spending account (FSA) for medical expenses.

Medicare's Unconvincing Racial Identification System

Normally, I would just have passed it by. The title, "More Accurate Racial and Ethnic Codes for Medicare Administrative Data" in the Spring 2008 Health Care Financing Review isn't exactly compelling.

Eighteen months ago I attended a symposium conducted by experts from Family Tree DNA, a service which matches and tracks mitochondrial and Y chromosome markers for those interested in genetic genealogy. One of the experts spoke about serious flaws in customary forensic identification of individuals' race assignments in criminal proceedings and the availability of technology advanced and convincing new methods.

As I read the Health Care Financing Review article, I noted no proof of the correctness of its claim that the authors' ethnic recoding and reidentification of beneficiaries improved the accuracy of coding for Hispanic and Asian or Pacific Islander beneficiaries. There was no independent technical verification of the validity of the authors' approach using available genetic confirmation. Basically, the authors seem to have claimed victory because their conclusions matched the biases they brought to the project.

This is no trivial issue because the statistical approach adopted by the authors, to "identify health care disparities between Medicare beneficiaries who are White, Black, Hospanic or Asian/Pacific Islander can safely proceed . . .it means it is possible to monitor efforts being made to reduce or eoiminate health care disparities among these groups." In other words, lots of dollars will be allocated differently if the authors' premises and conclusions are accepted.

Is this science or politics? Disease appears to match genetics more closely than loosely identified titles such as "race" or "ethnicity". Let's spend our money on science rather than biased conjecture which may lead to political decisions.