New State Reports from Families USA (click here)
March – April 2008
In 2006, (click here) there were nearly 2,231,000 people between the ages of 25 and 64 living in Kentucky. Of those, 19.0 percent were uninsured. Uninsured Kentuckians are sicker and die sooner than their insured counterparts.
Families USA estimates that more than one working-age Kentuckian dies each day due to lack of health insurance (approximately 470 people in 2006)....
March – April 2008
The number of uninsured Americans reached
47 million in 2006, and it continues to rise. For many of the uninsured,
the lack of health insurance has dire consequences. The uninsured face
medical debt, often go without necessary care, and even die prematurely.
Dying of lack of health care insurance doesn't happen overnight in many instances. The lack of attention to one's health is a progressive issue starting as a child in a poor family. It is why there is SCHIP. It is why adults can receive help with Medicaid. But, the problem spread from the poor to the middle class when the working poor discovered that work didn't bring health care benefits.
In 2006, (click here) there were nearly 2,231,000 people between the ages of 25 and 64 living in Kentucky. Of those, 19.0 percent were uninsured. Uninsured Kentuckians are sicker and die sooner than their insured counterparts.
Families USA estimates that more than one working-age Kentuckian dies each day due to lack of health insurance (approximately 470 people in 2006)....
19 percent of the population of Kentucky is 423,890 uninsured. Nearly half of a million people in Kentucky were at risk for death and ill health in 2006. Of that half million, 470 people died for lack of health care.
October 29, 2013, 1:16 pm
By JULIET LAPIDOS
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky hates the Affordable Care Act. (click here) So does Kentucky’s senior senator, Mitch McConnell — though apparently not quite enough to stave off a primary fight. The Senate Conservatives Fund has endorsed Mr. McConnell’s Tea Party challenger, Matt Bevin, who charged in a television spot that “McConnell helped Barack Obama and Harry Reid fund Obamacare.” By that he meant that Mr. McConnell worked to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling to avoid default.
And yet, with this bickering in the background, Kentucky has been unusually successful in rolling out its health insurance marketplace. Dylan Scott wrote in Talking Points Memo yesterday that “more than 26,000 people have enrolled in coverage, more than 50,000 have started applications and more than 300,000 unique visitors have checked out what the marketplace has to offer.” That’s in a state where roughly one in six are uninsured....
The danger is the ever imposing impoverishment of the USA. The poverty rate has grown since 2008 and remains stubbornly one of the deepest problems the USA has. There was no way the people of this country believed they would be facing poverty. The USA has always been about planning for the future. About saving and seeking to own a home and raise a family. Those ambitions drive this economy, but, to realize the population of the USA is now facing a growing rate of poverty and a generation abandoned to unemployment, there is no way the issue of healthcare can be ignored.
Public Health in the USA always kept pace with disease trends to fight back against the death rate of Americans. Today, Health Departments across the country have budget cuts and personnel losses. It is far better to seek to ask Americans to have personal health care insurance to be sure doctors and nurse practitioners are vigilant to the health of citizens.
When realizing the loss of Public Health jobs in the USA, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has come along just in time.
