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- Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
- Path: sparky!uunet!gumby!wupost!mont!pencil.cs.missouri.edu!daemon
- From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (Harel Barzilai)
- Subject: "STRONG FAMILY VALUES" (III) (1)
- Message-ID: <1992Aug19.214454.9252@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
- Followup-To: alt.politics.elections
- Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Sender: news@mont.cs.missouri.edu
- Nntp-Posting-Host: pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB
- Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 21:44:54 GMT
- Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Lines: 81
-
-
- We're Number One in percentage of population without health insurance.
-
- ============================================
- Percentage of population covered by
- public health insurance, 1990(25)
- ============================================
-
- COUNTRY PERCENT
-
- Australia 100
- Canada 100
- Denmark 100
- Finland 100
- Ireland 100
- Italy 100
- Japan 100
- New Zealand 100
- Netherands 100
- Norway 100
- Sweden 100
- United Kingdom 100
-
- Austria 99
- France 99
- Switzerland 99
- Spain 99
-
- Belgium 98
-
- Germany 92
-
-
- United States 21
-
- Sources: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (Paris),
- Health Data file, 1991: U.S.: National Center for Heath Statistics, Advance
- Data, No. 201, June 18, 1991.
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-
- "The main reason we're Number One in percentage of population without
- health insurance is that we're last in percentage of population
- covered by public health insurance. Only about one fifth of Americans
- qualify for the main types of public health insurance available in the
- United States: Medicare, Medicaid, and veterans' benefits.(2l)
-
- "Of those who don't qualify, many have private insurance.(22) But
- almost one in seven Americans (34 million people--most living in
- families with a working adult) have no insurance at all, and one in
- four (63 million) have been without insurance for a substantial period
- of time during the last two years. Many more have inadequate coverage,
- meaning that they could be bankrupted by a major illness.(23) In fact,
- one health care expert says that because only 1 percent of the
- population has private longterm-care insurance, "virtually any
- American could be impoverished by a prolonged disabling illness."(24)
- Additionally, as many as 40 percent of those eligible for some forms
- of public aid do not receive it. These gaps in health care result
- directly from the fact that the United States is the only major
- industrialized nation (other than South Africa) without a national
- health insurance plan providing universal coverage while controlling
- costs.
-
- From:
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- _We're Number One, Where America Stands -- and Falls -- in the New
- World Order_ by Andrew L Shapiro.
-
- New York, May 1992, Vintage Books, a division of Random House.
- $10 paperback. ISBN 0-679-73893-2
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-
- "America is becoming a land of private greed and public squalor.
- This book is an indispensable road map through the wreckage. The
- facts it reveals will startle you. They may depress you. But
- ideally they'll fire you up to help rebuild this nation."
-
- -Robert B. Reich, author of The Work of Nations
-
-
-