The pandemic has been tough on everyone. Despite the obvious problems of increasing number of deaths and overwhelming number of infected cases and the fact as of yet there is no cure to this deadly virus, there is another issue that is causing significant damage to the people of our country. The rising number of uninsured. The uninsured have had it worse during this pandemic and it needs to be noted a large proportion of the uninsured belong to the minority.
Our health system is such that it is expensive, so you need insurance because only the insured can seek treatment and to be insured, one needs to be employed and here lies the problem. The much needed safety measures like, quarantine, social distancing etc., meant that companies and organizations had to be closed down and this led to an enormous economic downfall that went far worse than The Great Depression & The World Wars combined. This meant that several employees were either furloughed or let go. Regardless, they lost their livelihood and taking into current circumstances, they no longer have the luxury of healthcare.
Another huge problem is that it is not just the unemployed who lost their healthcare benefits, their dependents lost them too. That means if the working person loses their employment, they lose their source of income, they lose their health benefits, their partner and children lose their benefits and the negative effects just keep cascading from there.
In just a few short months, at least 16 million of them simultaneously lost access to health insurance formerly furnished by their employers. Despite these historic coverage losses, no COVID-19 legislation yet signed into law has made a serious effort to protect comprehensive health insurance. One of the possible reasons is that there is no clear data on how many have lost coverage or exactly how many families are in need of health insurance. Unfortunately, for proper or at least reliable data to be obtained it will take until mid – 2021 and that is too much time.
The infographic below, illustrates the dire situation the people are in and more importantly it shed light on how much more devastating this situation can turn out be if nothing is done to stop it. This infographic was developed with the help of the study conducted by Families USA, The National Center for Coverage Innovation. This coverage loss report was released by them on 17th August, 2020 and delves into greater detail on this crisis. According to the study, the indisputable consensus is that right now, we are facing the greatest health insurance losses in American history. Also in this infographic, we are going to look at states with the highest spike of COVID-19 cases & uninsured, Texas, Florida, Nevada, Georgia, South Carolina.
It must be clear by now, as to how serious the situation is. COVID-19 has decimated the economy and the country as a whole is facing record high numbers of unemployment, evictions, health insurance losses and deaths.
There is a clear correlation between the increase in unemployment and the increase in uninsured people. Among the states chosen for comparison, there has been a significant spike in unemployment from 2018.
The states with the highest unemployment and consequently some of the highest uninsured members also have the largest spike in active COVID-19 infection cases.
Families in America are losing comprehensive health insurance in record numbers. This creates particularly serious dangers during a grave public health crisis and deep economic downturn. To deal with this mess, we need a new bill/ legislation that aims at closing the gap of the uninsured in our country.
We @BillingParadise, understand that providing the populous with affordable virtual services can help in easing some of stressors. So for our part we are aiding the efforts by providing these services currently at the most affordable rates.
