News Releases

May 13, 2004

America’s Uninsured: We Cannot Afford to Remain Silent

By Kim Moore, President
United Methodist Health Ministry Fund
Member of the Kansas Coalition of Cover the Uninsured Week

Each year the number of people in this country without health insurance increases. Each year premiums for businesses providing coverage go up. More working Americans are losing coverage and more businesses are coming to the tough decision that they can’t afford to provide coverage for their employees. Now is the time to do something about this problem.

Kim Moore speaks during an interfaith prayer breakfast event for Cover the Uninsured Week held at First United Methodist Church in Hutchinson, KS May 12.

According to the most recent statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 44 million people, including 8.5 million children, living in the United States were uninsured in 2002.
They are our family members, our friends, our neighbors and our colleagues. Eight out of 10 are in working families.

While these statistics are sobering, the real tragedy is what being uninsured can do to an individual or family. People without health care coverage live sicker and die younger than those with health care coverage. Without health insurance, minor illnesses become major because care is delayed. The Institute of Medicine estimates that 18,000 adults die each year because they are uninsured. Women without private coverage who have breast cancer have a higher risk of dying than those with private coverage. Patients without private coverage who have colorectal cancer are more likely to die than patients with private coverage, even when their cancer is diagnosed at similar stages.

In addition to the health effects of not having coverage, there are financial consequences that can be as devastating to a family. Medical bills are a leading cause of personal bankruptcy and are cited as contributing to half of all personal bankruptcy filings. More than half of working age adults who report serious problems paying medical bills are, or recently were, uninsured.

And there isn’t much hope that this problem is going to get better without new broad-based efforts. In 2002, the number of uninsured Americans increased by 2 million, the largest one-year increase in a decade. Premiums for large and small businesses continue to spike. Rising health care costs continue to undermine the ability of individuals, businesses and state governments to purchase health care coverage. Few working Americans are immune to the threat of being uninsured.

In Kansas, more than 317,000 of our neighbors, co-workers, friends and family are uninsured. More than 75,000 of those are children. Even those of us with health insurance are concerned that we are one job change, early retirement, or family medical crisis away from being uninsured.

Nationally leaders are coming together to say we must solve this problem. Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter are uniting with leaders in business, health care, faith and education as well as communities from coast to coast for Cover the Uninsured Week – the largest mobilization in history around this issue. In Kansas, more than 70 diverse organizations have come together, including businesses, medical groups, non-profits, foundations and community organizations. Our organizations disagree on many issues and represent many different interests, but on this issue, we speak with one voice.

Solving this complex problem will require the efforts of Americans from every walk of life and point of view. When millions of Americans can’t afford health coverage, we can’t afford to remain silent.

####

Media note: a portait of Kim suitable for publication is available here