NYT editorial: Who Needs Health Care Reform?

It is no secret that health care has become increasingly unaffordable as the cost of medical treatments and insurance premiums keep rising. Two recent studies have documented just how severe the burden can be and underscored the urgent need for the health care reforms that Republicans are so determined to repeal.

A report issued last week by the Commonwealth Fund, a staunch backer of the reform law, found that young adults ages 19 through 29 are among the groups most likely to be uninsured, with some 15 million of them lacking coverage in 2009, according to census data. Young people are often healthier, but they are not invulnerable. The fund’s survey found that high costs led 45 percent of young adults to delay or forgo needed care last year and left 39 percent with problems paying medical bills.

Health care reforms have already allowed more than 600,000 people up to the age of 26 to remain on their parents’ policies, a number that is expected to grow to an estimated 1.7 million by 2013. Starting in 2014, when Medicaid coverage for the poor expands and subsidies are available for middle-income Americans, an estimated 12 million young adults will have government-subsidized coverage.

Young people, of course, aren’t the only ones who need help and will benefit enormously from reform. An analysis issued by the Department of Health and Human Services earlier last month found that few families who lack health insurance have the financial ability to pay hospital bills. The report found that the median assets for middle-income families earning four times the poverty level, or $89,000 a year for a family of four, were below $4,100. The cost of an in-patient hospital stay typically exceeds $10,000 and can often exceed $100,000.

(More here.)