A report from the Kaiser Family Foundation stresses the importance of having health insurance for both health and financial reasons, underscoring the value of the benefit to federal employees of having employer-sponsored health insurance and remaining eligible to continue it in retirement.
The report noted that of the roughly 50 million Americans without health insurance, about three-fifths have at least one full-time worker in the family and about a seventh have a part-time worker. Of the total, about 42 million are adults, the rest children.
Lower income workers are less likely to be offered employer-sponsored health insurance among private sector workers, in contrast to federal employment, in which all workers are offered coverage regardless of income levels. Similarly, the likelihood of having coverage for other workers varies by state, with states in the South and West overall having higher rates of the uninsured, while FEHB is a national program.
Those without health insurance may have access to some forms of health care through sources such as the Medicaid program for lower-income people, the report said. But overall they are four times as likely to delay needed health care as insured persons, five times as likely not to get needed prescription drugs and six times as likely to go without needed care.
"Delaying or forgoing needed care can lead to serious health problems, making the uninsured more likely to be hospitalized for avoidable conditions. Overall, the uninsured are also less likely to receive preventive care, and consequently uninsured cancer patients are diagnosed later and die earlier compared to those with insurance. Cost barriers to health care have been growing in the past decade, even among insured adults. But the uninsured have lost the most ground and it impacts their health and leaves them vulnerable to high medical bills."
The uninsured are three times more likely than the insured to be unable to pay for basic necessities because of their medical bills, the report said, 15 percent versus 5 percent of those with insurance. Uninsured persons also are more likely to use up most or all of their savings on medical care, 27 percent versus 7 percent, and to have been contacted by a collection agency about medical bills, 33 percent to 8 percent.
