Filling in the holes on health discussion

In the April 18 Gazette, Ted Townsend, CEO of St Luke's Hospital, stated that 97 percent of Iowans have health insurance, so the new health reform law will have little impact in Iowa.

According to the Kaiser Foundation and the Census Bureau,

9.4 percent of Iowans do not have health insurance. For Iowans under age 65 - not yet eligible for Medicare - 10.7 percent do not have health insurance. Those data include children, many of who are eligible for state health care. So, for Iowans age 19 to 64, 13 percent do not have health insurance. Just as interesting, is that of employed people, 8.9 percent do not have health insurance (see www.state

healthfacts.org/).

Those data are for the years 2007 and 2008, before the recession and increase in unemployment.

Those added to the roles of the insured will help the bottom line of hospitals that have to write off medical care. It also will help the rest of us, subject to cost shifting, where premiums are increased to compensate for uncompensated care.

Look at Todd Dorman's April 18 column, on a different subject, but understand that discussions need to be supplemented with “bubbles” to reveal all the facts.

Niles Ross

Cedar Rapids