Despite the Clinton administration's best efforts to provide universal health insurance, 41 million Americans are still without it 10 years later. President Bush is practically silent on the subject, and nowhere in government or the private sector is the makings of a national plan that would extend this benefit to people of modest means.
In 2003 a nationwide "medigap" persists for workers who make too much money to be eligible for Medicaid yet lack the kind of compensation that includes employer-provided health insurance.
Fortunately for Pittsburgh, Catholic Charities is trying to respond the best way it knows how -- by raising $2.5 million to open and run a Downtown medical clinic within the next year. The clinic, in the organization's office at Ninth Street and Liberty Avenue, would use volunteer doctors, nurses and pharmacists to give free medical services to uninsured patients.
Bishop Donald Wuerl launched the fund drive last week with a $250,000 donation and a challenge for other givers to take part. Until the United States solves its chronic under-insurance problem, more noble efforts like these will be needed to bolster the health of people who have no other options.
As information released this week shows, the problem is growing. Cover the Uninsured Week, a nationwide campaign spawned by the AFL-CIO, the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, foundations and the health-care industry, was launched Monday to remind Americans of the unmet need.
As part of the event, the Allegheny County Health Department released a new survey showing that 150,000 county residents, or about 12.5 percent, lacked health insurance last year. Although a statewide percentage isn't available for 2002, that's higher than the 9.2 percent in Pennsylvania who were uncovered in 2001.
Nationwide, the 41 million, or 14 percent of the population, in last year's U.S. Census estimate had no insurance for all of 2001. But a new survey done by Families USA, part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said last week that in a two-year period, 2001-02, 75 million Americans, or 26 percent, were without health insurance for at least some time.
Some, no doubt, were going through job transitions. Others were like the 4 percent in Allegheny County last year who made more than $50,000 a year but still chose not to buy coverage.
But the bulk of the uninsured are low-wage workers who are taking risks with their health, while creating higher insurance premiums for everyone else by using a hospital emergency room as their primary-care physician. That's why businesses and insured workers also would benefit from a program that provides universal coverage.
Try as it might, the promising medical clinic being sought by Catholic Charities can't deliver that. Only Washington can, but not many people there seem to be interested.
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