This study quantifies, for the first time, the dollar impact on private health insurance premiums when doctors and hospitals provide health care to uninsured people. In 2005, premium costs for family health insurance coverage provided by private employers will include an extra $922 in premiums due to the cost of care for the uninsured; premiums for individual coverage will cost an extra $341.

Nearly 48 million Americans will be uninsured for the entire year in 2005. What happens when some of these 48 million Americans get sick? Research has shown that the uninsured often put off getting care for health problems.or forgo care altogether.1 When the symptoms can no longer be ignored, the uninsured do see doctors and go to hospitals. Without insurance to pay the tab, the uninsured struggle to pay as much as they can: More than one-third (35 percent) of the total cost of health care services provided to people without health insurance is paid out-of-pocket by the uninsured themselves.2

To find out who pays the remainder of this bill.the portion that the uninsured themselves simply cannot manage to pay.Families USA contracted with Dr. Kenneth Thorpe, Robert W. Woodruff Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, to analyze data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the National Center for Health Statistics, and other data. Through this study, we found that the remaining $43 billion is primarily paid by two sources: Roughly one-third is reimbursed by a number of government programs, and two-thirds is paid through higher premiums for people with health insurance.

As the costs of care for the uninsured are added to health insurance premiums that are already rising steeply, more employers can be expected to drop coverage, leaving even more people without insurance. And as more people lose coverage and the cost of their care is added to premiums for the insured, still more employers will drop coverage. It's a vicious circle that will not end until we as a nation take steps to solve the underlying problems.