Public Health Insurance / Care Options

For-profit health insurance is increasingly not an affordable option for most Americans, as insurance corporations dramatically raise premiums while paying less and less in benefits and more and more in executive salaries.

Unfortunately, few Americans have a viable health insurance alternative to the rationed insurance products offered by the profits-over-life free market mentality. At a time when the United States' wealth gap is on par with that of Third World countries (the bottom 40% of American citizens wealth-wise own all of 0.2% of the nation's wealth), the entire Republican Party (all of whom voted in lockstep against health care reform) seems totally outraged that the rich (the top 1% wealthiest Americans own about 40% of the nation's wealth) should be expected to contribute to the general welfare of the nation and citizenry from whom their wealth is derived.

Short of the actual enactment of health care reform, just what options are available to America's 35,000,000 million uninsured?

• Medicare
  Medicare is a social insurance program founded in 1965, administered by the U.S. government, and operating as a single-payer health care system. It provides health insurance coverage to persons aged 65 and over, as well as those who meet other special criteria. Medicare uses over 97% of premiums for medical services, compared to the roughly 80% of premiums that for-profit health insurance companies use for medical services. In numerous polls, a majority of Americans have expressed a desire for a nationwide single-payer health insurance plan for persons of all ages.
• Medicaid
  Medicaid is a means-tested United States health program, jointly funded by federal and state governments and managed by the states, for eligible individuals and families with low incomes and resources. Eligibility varies greatly from state to state, with some states less generous than others in providing for poor residents. As a result, approximately 60 percent of poor Americans are not covered by Medicaid. Nonetheless, Medicaid is the largest source of funding for medical and health-related services for people with limited income in the United States.
• Federally-Funded Health Care Centers
  The federal government provides some funding to states for the operation and maintenance of public health care centers that offer free and subsidized health care services to persons who cannot afford health insurance.
• Health Care Reform
  National health care reform efforts are focused partly on providing federally-established health insurance options for persons who cannot afford pro-profit health insurance and are ineligible for Medicaid. At this point, a Medicare-like single-payer system is not likely in the near future. The final shape of current health reform legislation will be determined in 2010.

For More Information:

Medicaid at a Glance (official U..S. Government site)
Medicare.Gov (Official US. Government site)
Medicare Resources (Official U.S. Government site)
Federally-Funded Health Care Centers
Free-Market Health Care Rationing
Physicians For a National Health Program
Do Corporate Feudal Lords Own America?

More Health Care and Insurance Information