Any hospital that receives funding from Medicare or Medicaid is legally obligated to provide care to a person presenting for treatment. It is an invisible, but nonetheless very real, safety net. The number of uninsured is primarily a result of the different financing systems we have. We do not have 44 million chronically uninsured people. The majority are in transition through our various systems.
People move in and out of jobs.
Therefore, they may have periods in which they are not qualified for private health insurance, and this may lead to three or four months where they and their families are uninsured. They also may be moving onto or off the rolls of a public program, such as Medicaid or the new State Children's Health Insurance Program. Ironically, the strength of our economy and new work arrangements also are contributing to the number of people without health insurance. More and more people are finding that they can bring their skills to the marketplace to start small companies or work under contract for a number of firms, but these new ways of working may not be in the context of a job that provides health insurance. As I mentioned, we do have a very strong safety net in the U.S. - both official and unofficial.