I am surprised there isn't a forum just dedicated to health care
Study links 45,000 U.S. deaths to lack of insurance
By Susan Heavey
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year -- one every 12 minutes -- in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found in an analysis released on Thursday.
"We're losing more Americans every day because of inaction ... than drunk driving and homicide combined," Dr. David Himmelstein, a co-author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, said in an interview with Reuters.
Overall, researchers said American adults age 64 and younger who lack health insurance have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those who have coverage.
The findings come amid a fierce debate over Democrats' efforts to reform the nation's $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare industry by expanding coverage and reducing healthcare costs.
President Barack Obama's has made the overhaul a top domestic policy priority, but his plan has been besieged by critics and slowed by intense political battles in Congress, with the insurance and healthcare industries fighting some parts of the plan.
The Harvard study, funded by a federal research grant, was published in the online edition of the American Journal of Public Health. It was released by Physicians for a National Health Program, which favors government-backed or "single-payer" health insurance.
An similar study in 1993 found those without insurance had a 25 percent greater risk of death, according to the Harvard group. The Institute of Medicine later used that data in its 2002 estimate showing about 18,000 people a year died because they lacked coverage.
Part of the increased risk now is due to the growing ranks of the uninsured, Himmelstein said. Roughly 46.3 million people in the United States lacked coverage in 2008, the U.S. Census Bureau reported last week, up from 45.7 million in 2007.
Another factor is that there are fewer places for the uninsured to get good care. Public hospitals and clinics are shuttering or scaling back across the country in cities like New Orleans, Detroit and others, he said.
Study co-author Dr. Steffie Woolhandler said the findings show that without proper care, uninsured people are more likely to die from complications associated with preventable diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.
Some critics called the study flawed.
The National Center for Policy Analysis, a Washington think tank that backs a free-market approach to health care, said researchers overstated the death risk and did not track how long subjects were uninsured.
Woolhandler said that while Physicians for a National Health Program supports government-backed coverage, the Harvard study's six researchers closely followed the methodology used in the 1993 study conducted by researchers in the federal government as well as the University of Rochester in New York.
The Harvard researchers analyzed data on about 9,000 patients tracked by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics through the year 2000. They excluded older Americans because those aged 65 or older are covered by the U.S. Medicare insurance program.
"For any doctor ... it's completely a no-brainer that people who can't get health care are going to die more from the kinds of things that health care is supposed to prevent," said Woolhandler, a professor of medicine at Harvard and a primary care physician in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
(Editing by Xavier Briand)
Nope we don't need to have universal health care, huh?
We can have more and more people die due to now having insurance!
“Two percent of the people think; three percent of the people think they think; and ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think.”
I am surprised there isn't a forum just dedicated to health care
“Two percent of the people think; three percent of the people think they think; and ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think.”
Like I've said before, you could make a study say anything you want. Lets see a study about how many uninsured people smoke, drink, take drugs, or practice other unhealthy acts that risk their lives. Far as I'm concerned maybe its a form of natural selection kicking in!
“Two percent of the people think; three percent of the people think they think; and ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think.”
As usual, you have the right idea but most would rather listen to imbecile hate mongers telling them WHAT to think and sadly, I've met some highly intelligent people who buy into this crap that "the United States" does not need a universal health care system with a public option" and if you state the number of deaths and uninsured, again, they'll quote the nazi talking points and say that "those figures aren't accurate" or "are exagerated."
I did not even know that LBJ had such a hard time passing Medicaire(?) which of course was opposed because although it has PROVEN to have helped probably tens-upon-tens of million Americans (since becoming law) the idiot protestors of THAT time called it "socialism."
Laughed my ass off the other day hearing some D.C. protesters interviewed on the radio as to the difference between socialism, fascism and other forms of govt their signs read and they did not know jack.
Aside from the mobs of retarded "protest-against-ourselves" zombies,
ALL radio, TV and print media liars including some really scummy politicians
have full medical & dental coverage;Not one worry in the world for health coverage. NONE.
So its EASY for Glenn I Like Hamsters Beck and Sean Dunce Hannity and the rest to rattle on about how nationalized health care will "ruin" and "bankrupt" America and so on-
Coincidence is the word we use when we can't see the levers and pulleys.
Emma Bull
They should do a study on the amount of deaths caused by stress created by taxes/fees they burden us with.
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“Two percent of the people think; three percent of the people think they think; and ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think.”
Russia isn't communist anymore, remember ronald regan tore down the berlin wall with his bare hands and ripped out stalin's heart and ate it.
China yes they do have better health care. Many americans are moving to china after college because it's a cheaper cost of living and they get health care coverage.
Even Cuba has better statistics than we do.
Do you know Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than we do?
“Two percent of the people think; three percent of the people think they think; and ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think.”
"I know you guys enjoy reading my stuff because it all makes sense. "
Dumbest post ever! Thanks for the laugh PO!
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