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The percentage of the population who are not covered by any form of healthcare and or medical insurance is one of the biggest healthcare-related problems in the United States . In 2010 alone, more than 49.1 million Americans out of the over 200 million (total population) were recorded as uninsured, which means that should they get sick, no equity or medical insurance firms would cover for the healthcare and medical expenses that they will accrue. That is one of the biggest possible risks that an individual can put him into because the United States is one of the most expensive places in the United States to get healthcare and medical services. What is more disturbing is the fact that majority of the uninsured are children and pregnant women. One interesting figure to consider would be the average percentage of the American population that has been without health insurance coverage from the year 1987 to 2011. If all members of the family will be considered, the percentage would be between 12.9 to 15.7%. Considering children only, the percentage is somewhat lower between 9.4% and 12.9%. While these figures are lower (which means more positive) compared to other countries, that advantage is offset by the fact that medical costs in the United States are very expensive.
This can be related to for-profit businesses. Most businesses that employ workers offer special health insurance packages as one of the benefits of being an employee for a particular company. In the United States, companies are required to offer complementary insurance services to their workers . Starbucks Corporation, for example, claims that they spend up to sixty percent of their profits for health costs alone. Such services include but may not be limited to wellness programs and premium insurance service coverage, believing that a healthy workforce is also a productive workforce.
Even with the launching of the Affordable Care Act, more famously known as the Obama-care, there still remain a significant, albeit dramatically lower number of people who are still uninsured. This may be because of the fact that the unemployment rate is still high and people who are unemployed often cannot avail of even the most affordable health insurance services.
This only proves the fact that despite boosting the budget for healthcare coverage, there will still be a small percentage from the population who would be uninsured. The only way to solve that, however, would be to shoulder the medical insurance costs of those who are both unemployed and cannot afford to subscribe to insurance programs on their own. The benefit of this would be an assurance that everyone would already be medically insured; the drawback of course, would be that the government would have to pay for the insurance premiums especially for those who are unemployed. Unemployment is one of the medical insurance barriers that the government has to address. That, however, is not within the scope of this paper. The fact that the reason why majority of the Americans are medically insured is because the law requires companies to offer such services as a complement to being employed should not be discounted. The solution that we just offered can be a real quick fix but it has drawbacks—it would certainly strain the federal government’s budget. It is not up to the policymakers to consider whether benefits of shouldering the costs for the uninsured would outweigh the risks of doing so. From a macroeconomic view, that may be a great idea because that would finally put an end to the decade long problem in the U.S. that is the rising number of the medically uninsured people.

References

Krugman, P. (2005). One Nation, Uninsured. The New York Times.
Rak, S., & Coffin, J. (2012). Affordable Care Act Summary. The Journal of Medical Practice Management.