Testing It Up

After all the debates, the health care reform bill that the Democrats have been lobbying for more than a year has been signed by the President into a law. While at the outset is promises more health care coverage for Americans, there are still those who will inevitably fall through the cracks. And by 2019, according to an article on the Christian Science Monitor, 23 million Americans will still be uninsured, based on an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office.

First on the list are undocumented immigrants – although technically they cannot be considered as Americans yet, the fact that they live on American soil will mean that they are among those who might be needing health care at some point. They are, however, not eligible for Medicaid.

There are also those who, while eligible, choose to not enroll in Medicaid. Even the institution of fines by virtue of the fact that health care insurance will be mandatory may not exactly be a deterrent. There may be some who would rather pay the fines – which are cheaper than actually getting insurance coverage. The article mentioned that this group may be composed of the younger and single set.

Still, there are those who, despite the subsidies that have been set up for them, will find that health insurance is simply out of reach from a financial point of view. For this group of people, there will even be no need to pay penalties; households where the cost of insurance coverage will exceed 8% of income will not be penalized for deciding to forego it.

Tags: health care benefits, health care reform, US health care

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