Poverty isn’t new. But it is new for 1.3 million Americans — including 800,000 children — that entered the ranks of the poor in 2003. Here’s coverage from The Associated Press, CNN, and Reuters. Oh, and here’s the Official Census Bureau Highlights, and the Census Bureau Press Release.
The short version: there are 35.9 million poor people in the United States, 12.9 million of them children; that works out to 12.5% of the general population and 17.6% of children; it is the third annual increase in a row and the highest level since 1998; even more people — 45 million, or 15.6% — had no health insurance. Although this data is usually not released until September, it has been put out a little earlier. Some people already see this as part of a political agenda to bury the data, as the last week of August is typically a slow news, Wall-Street-on-vacation, Congress out of session sort of time.
I realize some of you are saying “Tell me something I don’t know,” and others are saying “So what? There’s been poverty as long as there’s been civilization.” This is more serious than you might think. And not merely because it is evidence that “Compassionate Conservative” measures are not working. Believe it or not, this is a public health issue.
When more than one out of every 8 Americans does not have health insurance — and by extension does not have adequate access to timely medical care — that is a public health issue. Particularly if you throw communicable diseases into the mix. Or maybe the possibility of a flu pandemic, three of which have occurred in the last century.
For a variety of reasons, poor people and people without health insurance have a tendency to use Hospital Emergency Departments. This is particularly true when there are not public health clinics — and such clinics have long been squeezed between a rising population that needs them and shrinking funds with which to provide treatment. The result is that Emergency Departments are under great pressure, causing some to close, which in turn creates pressure on other hospitals (Here’s the No Registration Required version).
The answer to “What does this have to do with me?” is provided by a county official: “Whether you have insurance or not, if there’s not a bed for you, you’re not going to get in.” If the ER is clogged with people for whatever reason, if the hospital is full of people whose upper respiratory infection turned into pneumonia, your medical emergency is going to have to wait. And if those people can’t pay, you will eventually pay in the form of higher taxes, higher insurance premiums, or fewer hospitals.