45,000 Die Each Year From A Lack Of Health Insurance - The Fierce Urgency Of Now
By dday Saturday Sep 19, 2009 6:30amThe Harvard Medical School released a study yesterday that I dare you to read without your heart breaking.
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.
This is well up from a 2002 estimate showing 18,000 preventable deaths per year from a lack of health insurance. And the increase is directly related to the increase of the uninsured, as well as the scaling back of public hospitals or free clinics or access to care, particularly for those in poor areas. Diabetes and heart disease are two of the most common preventable diseases among this class of the uninsured. As one of the professors in the study puts it, "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,"
If anything, we're going to see this get worse, if nothing changes. Jobless rates are expected to remain high for years, according to the OECD. With the rapid job loss in this Great Recession, nobody expects as rapid a return. And that means more people dropping off the health insurance rolls. In addition, employers will raise costs and lower coverage, if they even keep it. And for every new member of the ranks of the uninsured, the chances increase exponentially for a preventable death.
The need for fundamental health care reform isn't just a statistical issue, or about budgets, or bending cost curves. It's a matter of life and death.
Login or Register to post comments.
Yesterday, I started using this fact when I send out emails to repugs who say there is a "culture of death" in the White House and who claim the Democratic health plan will have "death panels."
But, it probably won't matter. These repugs have no conscience. All they are worried about is the bottom line....they are greedy SOBs.
my extreme pro-life friends and family who for some reason just see the debate in terms of babies.
We didn't need this Harvard study to tell the story of the insurance company death panels. The White House and leaders of Congress should have been telling that story every day this summer, with first-person testimonials at hearings and elsewhere. It was the easiest story to tell in the entire health care debate. Understandable by everyone, and very emotional. The fact that it didn't happen is quite telling.
The Free Market(tm) will correct itself and the profits roll in.
Gotta leave the Free Market(tm) alone
Until the greedheads colossally screw-up and bust themselves by taking stupid, greedy risks.
Then you gotta leave the Free Market(tm) a loan at zero interest; oh hell - let's just make it a gift!
These CEOs must be rewarded for their greedy, risky behavior.
The plutocratic oligarchy of America:
Privatizing profit - socializing risk
Over your dead body.
Someone should do a current study of how many residents are being told by "THE CONNECTOR", based on incomes, what he/she/they can "afford" to pay for the MANDATED insurance.
Most I talk to tell me they CANNOT afford the premiums (unless they want to let their car in need of repairs sit in the driveway, or not pay the mortgage, or not pay the utility bills etc.), so they just PAY THE FINE (THAT THEY CAN AFFORD!!) AND GO WITHOUT MEDICAL INSURANCE!!!
Just wait until H.R. 3200 ("compromised" with HELP and the Baucus plan) morph into The Mass Plan on Steroids!!! And don't say I didn't warn everybody that this is EXACTLY what is coming down the pike. I'm beginning to think that the ONLY reason the Mass Plan was hatched was so it could be used as a "template" for the rest of the country.
I hate to say it, but when Americans are faced with the penalties or premiums that hurt them, we may see more than just the 45,000 deaths we're seeing now. We may see an incremental rise in SUICIDES.
"Way to go Maxie!!! Way to go Pelosi!! Way to go Obama! That's the way to treat the chump taxpayers!"
Just take your mind back to Katrina. Did anyone see "Trouble the Water"? The way they treated the American People during Katrina and even up until this moment is the way we are being treated NOW and the way they plan on treating us in the future.
Where is the justice for the American People? Who in Congress or in The White House or in the MSM REALLY gives a rats ass about any of us?
nary a hint of any emotion from the announcer (I forget whom I heard, but they're all pretty much the same, save Jack Cafferty). But discussion about the 'Thugs "Values Voters" conference going on now sure seems to have their panties all moist and wadded...
As Mike Malloy says, "Have I said yet tonight how much I hate these people?"
...........died unneccessary deaths since our heroine, Hillary got her ass kicked by the 'Un-healthcare Mafia'?????? Multiply the 45,000 by all the years since Hilly got turned into a PUKIEWHORE by DLC and TheFAMILY.
Driftglass's 'Family Values Party' Aristocrats joke, very rude very crude, but so damn true.
Most of our selfish politicians and MSM execs/pundits, would not know humanity if it collapsed and died on their fancy Italian shoes.
PS; Irvin Kristol died, about bloody time, get his matchbox ready.
without the graphic terms.
Keep spreading the truth, drifty!
Steve Gillard RIP was Driftglass.
was driftglass! Some of my confusion is probably due to C&L's continued linking to driftglass's blog in their blogroll. But mostly, it's my inability to keep up on everything and everyone in this age of information overload.
That said, Mr Gillard can probably write more cogently while dead than either of the Kristols did while alive.
Thanks for learnin' me sumthing today. Think I'll go nurse a beer and read for awhile...
Driftglass is alive and well.
correspondent on the Ed Schultz (radio) show with whom Ed often discussed sports, esp. football, on Fridays, before signing off for the weekend? I remember exactly where I was when I heard of his passing.
The Fierce Urgency Of Now
National Organization of Women?
The kind of virtues I'd like to see was Sir Kenelm Digby's Chivalry defined as, "Chivalry is only a name for that general spirit or state of mind which disposes men to heroic actions, and keeps them conversant with all that is beautiful and sublime in the intellectual and moral world."
Insurance and Banks two sides of the same coin!
We must have Auto ins and in MA health ins. as well... mandatory!
Insurance for... Fire, Flood, appliances, equipment, life, property, and business. Insurance, Insurance, fucking Insurance.
Get a load of this and keep AIG in mind.
Businesses usually insure to protect against unforeseeable circumstances like we all do. So we got these Businesses lets call them Banks. Do they pay for property and fire insurance? What exactly is there property? Desks, buildings, ATM's, your money?
I think, though I'm not sure, they're suppose to fund the FDIC with premiums set accordingly, no?
Who the hell is paying for the banks deposit(s) insurance, proudly reflected on that little FDIC sticker we've all seen?
By DANIEL WAGNER, AP Business Writer Daniel Wagner, Ap Business Writer – Fri Sep 18, 1:10 pm ET
FDIC chief considers tapping Treasury for funds
[ http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090918/ap_on_bi_... ]
Mar 4, 2009 12:49 pm US/Eastern Small Banks Say FDIC Rate Hike Punishes Them
[ http://wbztv.com/local/fdic.insurance.emergen... ]
Now-needy FDIC collected little in premiums
Snip - WASHINGTON - The federal agency that insures bank deposits, which is asking for emergency powers to borrow up to $500 billion to take over failed banks, is facing a potential major shortfall in part because it collected no insurance premiums from most banks from 1996 to 2006.
[ http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/... ]
Insurance companies...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurance_in_the...
Ya wonder why Citi was fond of Travelers....
Banks Leaving Life Support
Alexandra Zendrian, 09.16.09, 05:18 PM
The FDIC won't guarantee bank debt for much longer. This could separate the boys from the men. Buy investment banks.
[ http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/16/banks-debt-g... ]
True competition my ass )o(... sorry YSB :) you never put ® / © ;)
here is a blog that touches on the problem and if you don't think it's related to health insurance... think again!
[ http://credit101.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/ban... ] Thanks for the thread by the way... all things aside :)
Tina says:
March 12, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Let me get this straight, if I don’t pay my house premimums or car premiums do I get to keep my policy active for 10 years???
I don’t think sooooo
[ http://www.mytwodollars.com/2009/03/12/banks-... ]
Bank execs could go to prison for doing this !!! I fcuking hope some of them do so.
...Though I can't say with certainty, unfortunately I don't believe it was. At least as far as our laws are written. That's why auditing the Fed would go a long way in pointing out the self-serving assholes.
That's also why I'm trouble when some say it was stolen... it was, legally. It goes a ways back, but that "Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act" was a biggy.
Remember the Citi / Travelers deal about that time?
The Travelers Companies (NYSE: TRV) is the largest American insurance company by market value. It is also the second largest writer of commercial property casualty and personal insurance in the United States.
I'll wait until we have a bank thread before I complain anymore. :)
You know all this stuff better then I do... nice try smarty pants ♥
You won't see this story on the network channels. Fox was showing the pole that said 68% of doctors wanted a public option the complete opposite showing 68% of doctors were against it. With an impotent media and Dems like Baucus we are fucked.
twisting and inverting polls is a common thing these days, we saw this during the primaries and the election. Exit polls and cast votes often had numbers and percentages swapped on certain MSM channels.
It's not Fox News, it's Fox Agenda. The agenda comes first. The "news" is force-fitted around the agenda. Hence, the parallel reality.
Mix 25% truth with 75% insanity and you have faux superstar Glenn Beck.
I try to watch the odd clip to see what that jerk is saying, but hes so painful and embarrassing to see in whimpering action, the x gets clicked.
What is needed for the public option is to point out the embarrassing state of our health care.
Something like:
"France is kicking our ass with better health care. Do we really want the humiliation of knowing a croissant eating espresso sipping Frenchman has a better health care system than us? Let's show the world that we can have better health care for its citizenry on the scale that is more appropriate for America -- being number 1."
Then we can have the teabaggers chant -- "US #1 -- We're better than France... "
While Obama may have run a masterful campaign for the presidency, those involved in selling Healthcare Product 2009 (TM) have been ineffective.
Though it is sad that we need to stoop to the dumbest of 'Murkins, it has to be done. I suggest ads featuring fat, white trash kids and their parents being refused admission to hospitals for their diabetes, or being turned down for insurance because of pre-existing conditions. Run them nonstop in the South, rural Midwest, and Central CA farm areas.
If they have this habit of keeling over due to illness.
Coincidence methinks not.
Hate to say it, but the corporate media has done a good job for their corporate masters. While Medicare is so good for people over 65, it's somehow terrible for people under 65. Opposition to "socialized medicine" somehow gets disconnected from the poster child of socialized medicine, Medicare. The coverage of "death panels" is 100 fold that of the coverage of why U.S. coverage is 50% more costly per capita than what other industrial countries pay, even as we leave 16% of the population uncovered, why they cover everyone.
We have the same corporate media on the case here as the media that had most Americans supporting the Iraq war and believing that Saddam Hussain was tied into 911.
So to make it more real so our tea bigot friends can understand...
If you took the real number of people marching on Washington, and have approx. half of them disappear. That is what 45,000 Americans who die from lack of health care looks like
To the people who are screaming death panels, this is real death panel. Not the well there could be.... and the government could refuse.
I think it's more like rationing. If you don't have the money, then die.
Maybe show up at the tea baggers rallies with signs that say, "Let the Uninsured Die" would drive the point home.
A good percentage of them are most likely already on some form of gov/taxpayer funded medicare/medicaid, they are just selfish to not want millions more to share in the bounty.
True ladder pulling up Republicans.
I live across a bridge from dc. On 9/12 I held the door to my condo bldg open for 2 retireez visiting a condo resident. We got in the same elevator, and as we rode up I asked the woman what she and her hubby were doing in dc. Seems they were protesting gov't intrusion into their lives. I had to bite my tongue to keep from asking if they were giving up medicare, social security, special treatment by various gov't agencies, etc. Oh, and she had a sticker that demand the end to abortion on her coat. I wonder how she expects that prohibition to come about!
MZ
I live across a bridge from dc. On 9/12 I held the door to my condo bldg open for 2 retireez visiting a condo resident. We got in the same elevator, and as we rode up I asked the woman what she and her hubby were doing in dc. Seems they were protesting gov't intrusion into their lives. I had to bite my tongue to keep from asking if they were giving up medicare, social security, special treatment by various gov't agencies, etc. Oh, and she had a sticker that demand the end to abortion on her coat. I wonder how she expects that prohibition to come about!
MZ
... there is no way in hell there were 90,000 tea baggers in DC this past weekend. Estimates were topping at 60,000.
In 9/11 units, 15 times more Americans die each year due to lack of insurance than people died on 9/11. The lack of urgency to address this matter vs. the rush to war in 03 sort of points out about how pathetically misinformed this society really is.
They just walked around the cameras twice.
pres obama shouldn't pull his punches: the CEOs and senior mgt of the health insurance industry are evil people. they know without a doubt that their policies and their compensation packages lead to the death of thousands and thousands and thousands of people. and, not only don't they care, they use their power/money to ensure that the system they thrive from is not jeopardized--no matter how many people die.
they are some of the few people skulking the earth that actually make wall street financial crooks look less evil.
Wall Street merely steals money, HI inc steals souls.
The same 45,000?
Well there's that born-again experience for you.
That sounds more than how many showed up for that tea-baggers snit in Washington.
Maybe I should switch back to coffee.
When 1 person is killed (like the girl at Yale), it's a major national news story. When a few people die from a disease that MIGHT be a pandemic (like the N1H1 virus), that's another major story. If 3,000+ people a month died in one spot where it could be easily taped and visualized, well it MIGHT be news, but this will be ignored.
At the risk of sounding like a nerd, in the case of the right-wing in this debate, the needs of the one or the few out-weigh the needs of the many. The fear that they might have to wait to see their doctor frightens them... which is absurd.
This story is definitely something I'm going to use as I continue to debate this crap with some friends and family.
That study only covered Americans with NO insurance. I imagine if they had taken into account the number of Americans who HAVE insurance but their deductible or co-pay is so high they also don't see a doctor to address a medical issue in time has got to be in the hundreds of thousands.
hospital deaths from Medical Errors. And how many people die just from the so called "cures" our glorious medical system insists are your only chance.
The whole system sucks.
An average of 195,000 people in the USA died due to potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors in each of the years 2000, 2001 and 2002.
Study Highlights Among the findings in the HealthGrades Patient Safety in American Hospitals study are as follows:
-- About 1.14 million patient-safety incidents occurred among the 37 million hospitalizations in the Medicare population over the years 2000-2002.
-- Of the total 323,993 deaths among Medicare patients in those years who developed one or more patient-safety incidents, 263,864, or 81 percent, of these deaths were directly attributable to the incident(s).
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/1185...
of that number one day. If we have to count on the ethics, morals, and intelligence challenged Senate to do anything about it.
Even if we get real health care reform, as I understand it, it will not go into effect for 4 years, so extrapolate that out.
This is a moral failing of the United States from our President's on down the line to state legislators. It goes to show you that corporations really do run our country, not the people.
Login or Register to post comments.