More Americans May Have Lost Medical Coverage for Fourth Year

Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- The number of Americans without medical insurance probably rose for a fourth straight year as costs climbed and companies cut benefits, health economists said.



The U.S. Census Bureau may report today that one million Americans lost coverage last year even as the economy expanded and created jobs, according to the economists. In 2003, a record 45 million Americans lacked coverage.



``No one's adding coverage in a meaningful way,'' said Kenneth Thorpe, a health economist at Emory University in Atlanta, in an interview last week.



Health-insurance costs for employers jumped an average of 12 percent last year, five times faster than wages, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, which studies health trends. As more people go without insurance, the costs of health care increase for companies and employees who do have benefits, Thorpe said.



The uninsured population has increased each year since the 2001 recession. In the two previous years, when the economy and employment grew, the number fell by 5.6 million. The 2003 total equaled 15.6 percent of the population, the highest since 1998.



Hospital operators such as HCA Inc. incur higher costs and bad debt when patients without insurance go to emergency rooms, required to provide services under federal law. Hospitals then charge more to paying patients. Each year, hospitals and doctors provide about $45 billion in uncompensated care, Thorpe said.



``There's a tremendous amount of money being paid on behalf of the uninsured, and it's not financed in a very thoughtful way,'' Thorpe said. In June, he published a study showing that families with employer-sponsored coverage will pay an average $922 in extra premiums this year because of the costs of treating patients who don't have insurance.