Problems With Healthcare Insurance

More than 47 million U.S. residents have no health insurance as of 2010, according to the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). Those who do have insurance may still deal with gaps in coverage and other related hassles. While the exact solutions for problems with health care insurance remain unclear, it is important to understand some of the fundamental issues plaguing the long-standing model of health care in the U.S.

Cost

• As of a 2009, nearly 4 in 10 Americans said the rising costs of insurance and medical treatment rank as the nation's biggest health care problems, according to a "USA Today"/Gallup Poll. Fifteen percent of respondents to the Gallup Poll also mentioned the number uninsured Americans as a health care problem, followed by "insurance company greed," cited by 13 percent of respondents in the poll as the nation's biggest health care issue. Other less frequently cited problems in the poll include frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits, overcharging hospitals and fraudulent insurance claims, according to the 2009 Gallup Poll.

  Health care costs increased at roughly five times the rate of inflation between 2000 and 2010, according to the AFL-CIO. In light of such increases, some employers are shifting more of the health care costs to employees, resulting in higher premiums, deductibles and co-payments as well as an increase in out-of-pocket costs for doctor visits and more expensive prices for prescriptions. This has resulted in many people delaying or skipping check-ups and medical treatment, and in some cases families are declining coverage altogether due to the sheer financial burden, according to the AFL-CIO.

Coverage Restrictions and Runaround Tactics

• Other problems with health care insurance in the U.S. include restrictive coverage terms and runaround tactics such as rejecting claims, dropping people because they got sick and putting annual and lifetime limits on how much coverage people can get from an insurance policy, according to an article in "The Huffington Post" by Ethan Rome, executive director of Health Care for America Now.

  For example, in Colorado at least six major health insurance companies completely eliminated insurance policies for children because new health reform laws prevent them from turning away children with pre-existing conditions, according to the "Denver Post."

Pitfalls for the Uninsured

• A 2010 national survey estimated that 36 percent of non-elderly adults who tried to purchase health insurance directly from an insurance company were discriminated against because of a pre-existing condition in the previous three years, according to HealthReform.gov.

  Federal health care reform aims to gradually make health insurance options more affordable for all Americans and ban insurance companies from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions or imposing highly restrictive limits on benefits. Some laws have already gone into effect. For instance, as of Sept. 23, 2010, children can no longer be denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions, according to CNN.