Defining Underinsured Adults

There are ways to define the underinsured adults in any given community. Many of the medical health care records come through the local community hospitals in any given neighborhood. There are certain hospitals that seem to draw the uninsured and the underinsured so in reality the numbers are there for the taking. When the out of pocket health care expense is ten percent or higher of the individual’s annual income, they will refrain from seeking health care.

1.    Individuals with incomes that fall below the statistical poverty line in any given year will refrain from seeking health care services.

2.    Five percent or more of annual income equates to the health insurance deductible and therefore is unaffordable.

Well over fifty percent of those underinsured avoided seeking medical health care assistance for the illness or injuries because of the out of pocket expense being so high. In all sincerity, it is one thing to have health insurance coverage and it is another to have the money to afford even the deductible.

Being underinsured in many ways is really no different from being uninsured because you are still facing the same problems. Those individuals who could afford to visit with a medical health care provider, did, but then found they spent what money they had paying their share of the medical cost and now have no money to afford the prescription the medical physician wrote.

The written paper with the health care prescription never makes it to a pharmacy. It will sit on a counter top, collect dust, and eventually be thrown away. This is a very sad way to live, but for the moment, it is an unpleasant fact. There are millions of individuals living this way.

When an individual is having difficulty seeing because everything has become blurry, they will buy an assortment of cheap magnifiers to help them either see until they find a pair of glasses that someone inadvertently left behind or wait for a family member who has received a new pair. Health insurance is there for the taking, but not everyone has the means or the money to attain it.

However, as sad a reality of life this may be, low cost health insurance, or any other kind of health insurance is not a right, but a privilege. Others before had to work and claw their way into a better paying job. Some received grants and attended college with the intent of doing better when they finally graduated.