A report released to today by the Economic Policy Institute, "a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank," shows that the percentage of uninsured Americans rose 2.1% from 2000 to 2006. According to the report, employer-provided health coverage, which is the predominant form of health coverage in the United States, fell 4.5% in the same period.

Lest you think that you're safe in your white-collar job, be warned! The report emphasizes that loss of coverage occurred "across the socio-economic spectrum. [...] Even the most highly educated and highest wage workers had lower rates of insurance coverage in 2006 than in 2000." In 2006, only 61.4% of "white-collar" workers were covered by an employer's health insurance.

At the same time, the number of uninsured workers rose 2.8%. "Uninsured workers" are workers who in jobs where employer-provided heath coverage was never an option. The ethnic composition of uninsured workers is, of course, skewed. People identified as "hispanic" make up 40% of the uninsured workers category.

The point of this report is to show that private healthcare is not a viable option. Even as people are remain employed, they lose healthcare coverage. While Republicans and other proponents of private healthcare view healthcare as a commodity, the report suggests that that model is flawed. Moreover, non-employer-provided private healthcare is very expensive for just basic care, even discounting co-pays and deductibles.

Also, observe an interesting footnote that contradicts what President Bush and others have said about SCHIP expansion:

Opponents of SCHIP expansion argue that the availability of a public insurance option leads parents to voluntarily drop private coverage and shift their children's coverage to the public sector. As shown in an EPI Economic Snapshot, research shows very little of such "crowding out" actually occurs. The large majority of SCHIP recipients—86%—were either not covered six months before entering SCHIP or had lost private coverage within six months prior to enrolling.

Republicans, who profess to believe in a free market (except where it hinders the ability of a firm to make a lot of money, in which case, Republicans believe that the government should assist those firms, while at the same time insisting that government should not assist individuals), argue that the government's sheer size and scope is an unfair advantage, and government's entry into a given industry will cause firms to leave that industry because they cannot effectively compete with the government. This is called "crowding out." It's the number one reason why President Bush and others oppose a government-run healthcare system. This justification is based on the assumption that healthcare is and ought to be a commodity available for sale in the open market, like a car, refrigerator, or toothpaste.

The above blockquote shows that the "crowding out" effect is negligible, since 86% of the people who would be covered by SCHIP weren't even buying private insurance, anyway! It's not that the government pushed consumers toward private healthcare; quite the opposite, since, in losing coverage, the consumers were pushed out by private healthcare providers.

The "invisible hand" metaphor articulated by Adam Smith (in doing something good for yourself, you will necessary do good for society) works only when the motives of both the individual and society are the same. When it comes to healthcare, the motives of the health insurance company and the customer are actually in opposition. The interest of the insurance company is in making profit, and to do that, it must pay out as little as possible to customers. The interest of the customer is in getting well, and to do that, the customer must receive an unknown amount of care, which equates to an unknown amount of money. In order to get well, a customer may need only to see a doctor and receive some pills; insurance companies like doing this because it minimizes the amount of money it has to spend. On the other hand, the stories from Michael Moore's Sicko were about customers who needed a tremendous amount of expensive care: diagnosis with expensive equipment, multiple expensive surgeries, treatment with expensive drugs, and possibly expensive aftercare. Insurance companies, if they're rational, hate these customers, since it is these customers that decrease their profits. And, it turns out, they often refuse to pay for treatment, or they direct their doctors not to provide expensive treatments, even while the doctors themselves may know that it is exactly that expensive treatment that could cure them. (There might be a possibility that the treatment may not cure them, but ethically, a doctor is obligated to try to cure a patient even if that cure might be expensive; in the trade-off between cost and human life, human life should always win.)

Ironically, the customers who need healthcare most are those customers for whom insurance companies want to provide healthcare the least. This is why private health insurance doesn't make practical sense. The needs of both parties are diametrically opposed, as compared to, say, a consumer who is in need of a toothbrush.

The government, on the other hand, is not in the business of making profit. It is in the business of ensuring that its citizens live. (If you disagree with this statement as one of government's objectives, then you also necessarily disagree with the existence of public police departments, fire departments, and emergency rooms, since these are all services that could be provided by private companies based on fees or subscriptions.) The government's incentive in a business is not profit, so it can afford to engage in functions that private industry may not, such as providing healthcare at cost or even taking a loss, all in the name of, again, not profit, but the continued survival of its citizens. It is for this reason that healthcare should not be controlled by the government, not by private firms.