Uninsured paying $30B for healthcare

NEW YORK, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- Americans with no health insurance will spend about $30 billion out of pocket on medical care this year, a new study said Monday.

Some $56 billion of those costs will be paid by others, mainly the U.S. government, the report said.

The survey estimates the government pays 75 percent or $42.9 billion of the amount uninsured patients can't pay through Medicaid and Medicare, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The tab to cover all the uninsured was set at $208.6 billion.

Healthcare spending accounted for 16.3 percent of gross domestic product in 2007, or about $2.2 trillion, and that amount could nearly double in 10 years, federal figures indicate.

The report, published Monday the journal Health Affairs online, was the work of researchers at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and the Urban Institute think tank in Washington.

The U.S. Census Bureau releases two reports Tuesday on income, poverty and the uninsured.