Playing with Percentages: Health Care in America

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9% From June 2009 to March 2010—the heart of the health care debate—only 9% of media stories about health care reform actually “focused on a core issue — how our health care system currently functions, what works and what doesn’t,” according to a Pew Research study; the study says that 41% of health care stories were devoted to tactics and strategies for getting reform passed (or not), and 69% of Americans said the debate was hard to follow

11%, 25%, 42% The respective percentages of women lacking health insurance if they have a college degree, a high school diploma only, and no high school diploma, according to a recently released paper cited in an LA Times blog

20% An American Medical Association report says that one in five medical claims is processed incorrectly by health insurers; the report estimates that if accuracy was increased by just 1%, $777.6 million could be saved annually in administrative costs—but as things now stand, the mistakes due partly to an overly complicated system waste up to $15.5 billion per year

20% That’s the average premium increase currently being imposed on people who buy their own health insurance, per a Kaiser Family Foundation report; to contrast, an LA Times story cites a survey of over 500 large employers that say their health care costs will rise this year by 6.5% — which is still three times the current rate of inflation

52% A study in a NY Times article found that patients with no insurance who had heart attacks were 52% more likely to die in the hospital than patients who had private insurance; patients without insurance who had strokes fared slightly better, but were still 49% likely to die than their insured counterparts

84% The average monthly COBRA premium eats up 84% of the person’s unemployment check, according to a CNN story about the end of COBRA subsidies, which had been covering 65% of premiums for those laid off between September 2008 and May 2010, but which ended as of June 1; a typical family paid $4,725 a year for insurance with the subsidy, and would have to pay $13,500 without it

92% In the impoverished country of Rwanda, 92% of citizens have health insurance, which costs $2 a year and covers the basics; about 15% of Americans do not have health insurance

39%, 97% The increase in health insurance premiums and medical inflation, respectively, from 2000 to 2008, per a report cited in a NY Times story

Read more:
A Dozen Disturbing Health Care Statistics

Another Dozen Disturbing Health Care Statistics