9 -- that's number of states and the District of Columbia where there is still no specific law that makes it illegal for insurers to reject applicants who are survivors of domestic violence by citing the history of domestic violence as a pre-existing condition.1
Unfortunately, the gender inequalities across our broken heath care system don't end there. In many states, insurance companies can still discriminate on the basis of gender -- charging women higher premiums than men simply because of their gender or denying coverage because of so-called "pre-existing conditions" like being pregnant, experiencing a prior pregnancy complication, or having undergone a C-section. And health plans in the individual market often do not cover basic maternity care.
50/50 If you’re an American under the age of 65, there's roughly a 50/50 chance that you will find yourself without coverage at some point in the next decade.1
Simply put, losing insurance can happen to anyone.
At yesterday's health reform event, President Obama told the story of Natoma, a self-employed woman in Ohio who found herself in the position of losing her health insurance after yet another rate hike from her insurance company:
"She realized that if she paid those health insurance premiums that had been jacked up by 40 percent … she couldn't make ends meet. So January was her last month of being insured. Like so many responsible Americans -- folks who work hard every day, who try to do the right thing -- she was forced to hang her fortunes on chance... And on Saturday, Natoma was diagnosed with leukemia…
"Part of what makes this issue difficult is most of us do have health insurance, we still do.... But what we have to understand is that what's happened to Natoma, there but for the grace of God go any one of us."
For Natoma and the millions of other Americans forced to face the burden of medical bills they can't pay while at their most vulnerable.
1 -- in every six dollars in the U.S. economy is spent on health care today.1
If we do nothing, in 30 years, 1 out of every three dollars in our economy will be tied up in the health care system.2
Skyrocketing health care costs aren't just crippling the U.S. economy -- they're emptying the pocketbooks of American families. If we do not enact health insurance reform, individual and family spending on premiums and out-of-pocket health care costs could increase 79 percent in just 10 years.
41 -- is also the percentage of adults under the age of 65 who accumulated medical debt, had difficulty paying medical bills, or struggled with both during a recent one-year period.
625 -- that's the number of people who lost their health insurance every hour in 2009.1
A statistic like that tells a frightening story -- losing insurance can happen to anyone. How many more Americans have to lose their health insurance and how many more businesses have to drop coverage before we fix our broken health care system?
8 -- that's the number of people every minute who are denied coverage, charged a higher rate or otherwise discriminated against because of a pre-existing condition.1
8 is also the number of lobbyists hired by special interests to influence health reform for every member of Congress in 2009.
$1,115 -- that's the average monthly premium for employer-sponsored family coverage in 2009. Annually, that amounts to $13,375, or roughly the yearly income of someone working a minimum wage job.1
It gets worse: a recent survey found that if we do nothing, over the next ten years, out-of-pocket expenses for Americans with health insurance could increase 35 percent in every state in the country.
3 million -- that's the decrease in the number of middle-income earners who obtained health insurance from their employers from 2000 to 2008.1
And 3 times -- is how much faster health care premiums are rising compared to wages.2
While our broken health care system is hurting everyone, it's the middle class that's feeling it the most. A report just out from the non-partisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation shows that the middle class became uninsured at a faster pace than those with less or more income.
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
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