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Nearly 1.7 million U.S. veterans
had no health care coverage in 2003
October 19, 2004--WASHINGTON - Nearly 1.7 million U.S. veterans had no
health care coverage in 2003 -- no access to private insurance, to
Medicare or Medicaid or to the Veterans Affairs health program, health
care advocates said on Tuesday.
Many had seen combat in Vietnam or the Gulf Wars and most were employed,
the Physicians for a National Health Program and Public Citizen said in
a joint report.
"The number of uninsured veterans has increased by 235,159 since 2000,
when 9.9 percent of non-elderly veterans were uninsured, a figure which
rose to 11.9 percent in 2003," the groups said.
They found that more than one in three veterans under the age of 25
lacked health coverage, and one in 10 of those aged 45 to 65.
"Like other uninsured Americans, most uninsured vets are working people.
And uninsured veterans are denied the care they need -- turned away
because they can't pay," Dr. Steffie Woolhandler of Harvard Medical
School, who helped found the PNHP, told a news conference.
The groups were especially critical of a January 2003 decision by the
government to suspend eligibility for so-called Category 8 veterans, who
include "middle-income" ex-servicemen and women making on average
$25,000 a year or more.
"The armed services are aggressive in encouraging people to join the
military to serve their country and to 'be all you can be'," said Dr.
Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group.
"But after leaving the service, almost 1.7 million veterans do not have
the right to health care, in a way, being discarded by the government
after serving their country. Without access to health care, no one can
be all that they can be."
The Department of Veterans Affairs said it was studying the report and
preparing a comment.
GOVERNMENT SURVEYS
"These numbers should come as no surprise to the government because we
used government data," Woolhandler said.
The groups relied on the March 2004 Current Population Survey Annual
Social and Economic Supplement, which includes information from 200,000
people, and the 2002 National Health Interview Survey of 93,000 people.
Those surveys have also been used as a basis for the widely quoted
figure that 45 million Americans went without health insurance in 2003.
People without health insurance are unlikely to get anything but
emergency health care and often not even that.
Based on the data, 1.694 million American veterans had no insurance
coverage last year, the researchers said.
That would include 680,000 Vietnam-era veterans and 900,000 from other
times -- mostly the 1991 Gulf War, because Korea and World War II
veterans were covered by Medicare.
"An additional 3.9 million members of veterans' households were also
uninsured and ineligible for VHA (Veterans Health Administration) care,"
the groups said in a statement.
Woolhandler said veterans who had any kind of coverage at all were
filtered out.
"First, both surveys we analyzed asked respondents if they had 'veterans
or military health care' and considered anyone answering 'yes' as
insured," reads the report, published on the Internet at http://www.pnhp.org/Veterans/veteranrep.doc.
"The National Health Interview Survey was highly specific in this
regard, identifying 1.43 million veterans with military/veterans'
medical care but with no other insurance. We considered all 1.43 million
of these veterans to have coverage," it added.
"The data suggest that the VHA currently cares for about 45 percent of
the 3.15 million veterans without any other coverage." |