HEALT H CARE A NA LY T I C S
Rise of the empowered
patient consumer –
courtesy of analytics
About 44 million people in
the United States have no
health insurance and 38
million have inadequate
insurance. For a lot of
people there is no “shared
responsibility” for health
per se. Most people don’t
“own” the care of their
health; it was provided
and mostly paid for by
someone else.
BY RAJIB GHOSH
16
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As of this writing, 7.5 million people have signed
up for their own health insurance policies via Healthcare.gov or 14 state-run health insurance exchanges.
In addition about three million people have enrolled
in state Medicaid programs. Private enrollment outside of those insurance marketplaces is also growing
and could be substantial. In other words – all signs
indicate that more and more people are apparently
taking control of their own health – the holy grail of
consumer-driven healthcare. Clearly, if we seek control over our cost of insurance, we have to be careful
about our personal health choices. Shouldn’t that be
the case anyway?
Well, that’s not how we do things in the United
States. Based on a report by the Congressional Budget Office, more than 50 percent of Americans or 156
million people were covered by employer-sponsored
insurance plans in 2013 [1]. Government-run programs such as Medicare and Medicaid cover 31 percent of the population who are poor, disabled or over
65 years old [2]. The government safety net is one of
the most prized albeit expensive possessions of the
American public.
A N A LY T I C S - M A G A Z I N E . O R G
W W W. I N F O R M S . O R G