Yahoo! News - U.S. Uninsured Health Care Cost Put at $125 Billion
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The cost of providing health care for U.S. citizens who have no insurance will total $125 billion this year, with taxpayers and private entities footing most of the bill, a report issued on Monday said.

"Leaving 44 million Americans uninsured exacts a substantial price on society as well as individuals, while covering the uninsured would improve their health care without generating large increases in overall health spending," said Diane Rowland, executive director, Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.

The nation would have to spend an extra $48 billion to cover the so-called newly uninsured, the report said. But that would only increase health care spending's share of gross domestic product by 0.4 percent.

Partly because they lack insurance, an additional 18,000 adults die each year, the report estimated, citing figures from a branch of the National Academy of Sciences.

People who have no health insurance typically get less preventive care, are diagnosed with more advanced diseases, and "tend to receive less therapeutic care and have higher mortality rates," the report said.

Hospitals will spend billions of dollars treating the uninsured, though these organizations typically get big government subsidies, the report said. In 2001, hospitals accounted for more than 60 percent of what was spent on uncompensated care.