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"1 in 1000 uninsured people die each year. It's not an exaggeration to say that due to the work we're doing here, 5,000-10,000 people will live to see the end o

• brandonb 13y ago
  An estimated 26,000 people die each year due to lack of insurance coverage. That's part of the reason the Affordable Care Act was passed. For more information, see this Reuters article from 2012: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/20/us-usa-healthcare-deaths-idUSBRE85J15720120620 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/20/us-usa-healthcare-...
  • at-fates-hands 13y ago
    Too bad the people who actually need it, are not signing up. Not to mention the people who HAD coverage are now getting cut off of their insurance and forced into the exchanges. A complete failure anyway you look at it. http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/01/18/coverage-expansion-fail-less-than-one-third-of-obamacare-exchange-enrollees-were-previously-uninsured/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/01/18/coverag... "Instead of expanding coverage to those without it, Obamacare is replacing the pre-existing market for private insurance. Surveys from insurers and other industry players indicate that as few as 11 percent of those on Obamacare’s exchanges were previously uninsured" But wait a minute! Obamacare was supposed to cut my rates my $2,500 A YEAR right? WRONG. Apparently, it still costs too much for the people who really need it: "Of those that didn’t sign up for Obamacare-based coverage, 52 percent stated that “affordability” was their biggest complaint with the exchanges’ plan offerings. Only 30 percent cited “technical challenges in buying the plans.” "Joan Budden, chief marketing officer at Priority Health, told Wilde and Mathews that Michigan’s health insurers had expected 400,000 uninsured Michiganders to enroll in exchange based plans during the initial enrollment year. According to the latest data from the Obama administration, as of December 28, only 75,511 had “selected a marketplace plan.” Of those, only an unknown fraction had paid their first month’s premium, and therefore were actually enrolled in new health coverage." So if this is such a success, why isn't the White House trumpeting the real numbers of people who've signed up then?? http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/4/white-house-sees-obamacare-working-wont-release-fi/ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/4/white-house-s... "For the fourth day in a row, the Obama administration on Friday declined to release figures on how many Americans have purchased health insurance through the just-opened online markets tied to the new health care law. White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that millions of people have visited the federal HealthCare.gov site, which directs people to coverage options, but he did not have “specific data” at this early stage in the enrollment period." There are better ways to do this than handing over 1/3 of our economy over to the Federal Government. You want competition? You can start by letting insurance companies deal across state lines. More competition, increased quality of care, lower costs and better care for everyone.
    • 3am 13y ago
      Did you read the links in your post? The first doesn't strongly support your points, and the second was out of date almost 4 months ago. And that's really saying something, because the first link is an OpEd by Mitt Romney's former health care advisor who is a senior fellow at a conservative think-tank. Some of the downsides of allowing health insurance to be sold across state lines are addressed at http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/stories/2010/september/30/selling-insurance-across-state-lines.aspx http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/stories/2010/september/30/se... - and they include an AEI fellow's views for balance. The auto insurance market is a hybrid, though, and doesn't show a large cost savings for states that effectively allow cross-state lines operations via identical regulations. I think it's also fair to ask also why health insurers that operate in all/most states (UnitedHealth, Aetna, Cigna, Athena, etc) are not substantially cheaper that BC/BS peers that don't.
    • JPKab 13y ago
      My mother in law has worked for the past 15 years at jobs which employ her for 39.5 hours a week and don't give her health insurance. She suffers arthritis in her hands and knees. She signed up and received health insurance for the first time in 15 years last week. She is now receiving the medical care she needs. Had she not, she would have had to apply for disability benefits. Now, she gets to keep working. You don't know what you are talking about. My mother-in-law makes shit money, and yet she has a plan that is extremely affordable for her. Your a partisan hack, and your facts are regurgitated from professional partisan hacks. Your absurd "handing a 1/3 of our economy over to the Federal Govt" comment points out your biased sources of knowledge. How is a website which matches consumers with private insurance companies equate to "handing over" to the Federal Government? What planet do you live on? Alabama?
      • AutoCorrect 13y ago
        anecdotal evidence and ad hominem attacks don't help you argue your points.
        • JPKab 13y ago
          Agreed. But partisan hackery is like porn. You know it when you see it.
• kevincrane 13y ago
  But if you know you can't afford it, maybe you'd avoid going to the hospital when you really should.
• jbooth 13y ago
  Hospitals don't turn away uninsured at the ER. However, due to lack of regular care, by the time you show up at the ER it might be too late.
  • beat 13y ago
    I have high blood pressure. Thanks to insurance, I was able to spend a few months with my doctor, experimenting with medications until we found the combination that brought it down to manageable levels. Meds cost me $15 a month or so. Blood pressure medication will almost certainly add many years to my life - decades, maybe. Without insurance, I couldn't have afforded the half-dozen trips to the doctor or the meds. And I'd wind up getting lifesaving treatment for an early heart attack or stroke in the ER. I'll take the insurance, thanks.
    • liber8 13y ago
      Honest, non-snarky question for you: How is it that you could not afford a half-dozen trips to your doctor, but you could afford your medical insurance premiums? Are your premiums subsidized or free? Is the doctor terribly expensive? (I'm assuming that your doctor charges $250 or less per visit. Six visits would cost $1,500. I'm assuming those visits were spread over at least a number of months, so you could see whether each medication was effective. I'll also assume your health insurance is at least $400/month, though that number is likely higher if you're over 30 or female. This means your six visits cost roughly four months worth of insurance premiums.)
      • beat 13y ago
        Honest, non-snarky answer... to be pedantic, for me it's not a question of affordability. I'm a software professional with a very good income, and I could do it on my own. I have a friend a few months younger than me. She makes less than $15k/year, and has two children living at home. Under those financial circumstances, she has totally paid off her home, which should tell you how frugal and responsible she is. She has also experienced extensive hospitalization due to illness. If she had to pay for that (it was paid for by state-subsidized health care), she'd have lost her house. edit: Medical costs are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US.
• untog 13y ago
  People have to be inside hospitals for hospitals to help them. If you don't have insurance you're less likely to go in the first place.
  • ryanhuff 13y ago
    I question the validity of your statement. In the US, for many uninsured, the hospital ER is their primary care outlet.
    • untog 13y ago
      But by the time they go to the ER it's too late. People with insurance go for regular checkups that will catch things early. Those without will only go to the ER when their situation is desperate.
      • ryanhuff 13y ago
        Perhaps you misunderstood my comment. Many uninsured in the US go to the hospital ER for minor care, such as for colds and other temporarily ailments. I suspect that these sort of cases far outnumber the visits involving serious care cases.
      • Shivetya 13y ago
        you would be surprised how many with insurance don't go or don't listen to their doctor. it has nothing to do with insurance and more to do with fear or just laziness
• Crito 13y ago
  Hospitals do "let" uninsured people die because they are not obligated to provide the full extent of their care capabilities to people who cannot afford it. Come in with a hole in your abdomen, and for sure they'll patch you up even if you don't have insurance. Come in riddled with cancer? Don't expect the same as they would give somebody who could pay themselves or had insurance. This said, it is still a shoddy use of statistics. "1 in 1000 uninsured people die each year" by itself tells us pretty much nothing. What is the rate of death for insured people? Wikipedia tells me that 8.39 in 1000 people die in America every year, so if uninsured people are only dying at a rate of 1 in 1000 every year, it seems to me that either it is beneficial to be uninsured, or uninsured people are not representative of the population (perhaps because many of them are young and healthy?). I suspect that what is going on is this person actually meant to say something along the lines of "1 in 1000 people die every year in ways that could have been prevented if they had insurance" A subtle but important difference. The actual mortality rate of uninsured people is most likely much higher than 1 in 1000, but the deaths of uninsured people in motorcycle accidents would not be counted in that "1 in 1000" figure. Either way, it is shoddy.
  • brandonb 13y ago
    Yes, I meant to say 1 in 1000 uninsured people die each year in ways that could be prevented by insurance coverage. Here's an article that references a few of the reports: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/20/us-usa-healthcare-deaths-idUSBRE85J15720120620 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/20/us-usa-healthcare-...
  • twistedpair 13y ago
    > Come in riddled with cancer? Don't expect the same as they would give somebody who could pay themselves or had insurance. Ah, yes, the classic American healthcare problem. The poor person just gets to go to hospice and keel over. The rich person gets to limp along, endure 3 rounds of chemo, and spend the few remaining months of her life hooked up to machines in what is arguably a Pyrrhic victory and even lower quality of life.
    • Crito 13y ago
• vwinsyee 13y ago
  > Hospitals don't let uninsured people die and insuring people doesn't magically save their lives. Not sure where you're getting this. A quick Google Scholar or PubMed search shows a consensus that mortality rate is significantly higher for uninsured than for insured. [1, 2, 3] [1] e.g. http://jpubhealth.oxfordjournals.org/content/32/2/236.short http://jpubhealth.oxfordjournals.org/content/32/2/236.short -- On multivariate analysis, uninsured compared with insured patients had an increased mortality risk (odds ratio: 1.60, 95% CI: 1.45–1.76). The excess mortality in uninsured children in the US was 37.8%, or 16 787, of the 38 649 deaths over the 18 period of the study. Children who were hospitalized without insurance have significantly increased all-cause in-hospital mortality as compared with children who present with insurance. [2] e.g. http://journals.lww.com/jtrauma/Abstract/2012/11000/Undiagnosed_medical_comorbidities_in_the.9.aspx http://journals.lww.com/jtrauma/Abstract/2012/11000/Undiagno... -- Undiagnosed preexisting comorbidities play a crucial role in determining outcomes following trauma. Diagnosis of medical comorbidities may be a marker of access to health care and may be associated with treatment, which may explain the gap in mortality rates between insured and uninsured trauma patients. [3] e.g. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002961010000115?np=y https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000296101... -- A total of 1,203,243 patients were analyzed, with a mortality rate of 3.7%. The death rate was significantly higher in penetrating trauma patients versus blunt trauma patients (7.9% vs 3.0%; P < .001), and higher in the uninsured (5.3% vs 3.2%; P < .001). On multivariate analysis, uninsured patients had an increased odds of death than insured patients, in both penetrating and blunt trauma patients.
  • trhway 13y ago
    >mortality rate is significantly higher for uninsured than for insured. correlation doesn't mean causation. >to help make our government work better i somehow doubt that throwing a team of "rockstars" to clean up the mess is making the government to work better. If anything, it enables the typical government behavior we saw in the case of healthcare.gov.
    • aero142 13y ago
      Many people believe that the Oregon Health Study is the best chance we have of teasing causation out of the data. It is still in progress but it is being watched closely. http://oregonhealthstudy.org/ http://oregonhealthstudy.org/
• kyro 13y ago
  You're talking about EMTALA, which is an act that prohibits turning away uninsured patients away who are in need of emergent care. Once the patient is stabilized and either discharged or admitted, they are subject to payments. The patient with metastatic cancer who needs chemoradiation on an outpatient basis must pay for his/her care.
  • dragonwriter 13y ago
    > You're talking about EMTALA, which is an act that prohibits turning away uninsured patients away who are in need of emergent care. Once the patient is stabilized and either discharged or admitted, they are subject to payments. More importantly, as it only requires emergency stabilization and not further care to be provided without regard to ability to pay, once they are stabilized they can be discharged instead of being admitted.
• runamok 13y ago
  They don't let them die right there because of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA). But they patch them up and send them home as soon as they're stable. That absolutely leads to significantly worse outcomes which others have referenced. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMTALA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMTALA
• dragonwriter 13y ago
  > Hospitals don't let uninsured people die They don't do as much to stop them from dying. (Other than public hospitals -- of which there are a limited number with limited capacity -- they are only obligated to stabilize them in the ER and then, if they have further medically-necessary care but are stable, they can discharge them and/or transfer them to a public hospital if one is available, whereas those that have resources, insurance or otherwise, to pay would be admitted.) > insuring people doesn't magically save their lives. Strictly true -- it doesn't do so magically. It does so, instead, but the relatively mundane mechanism of providing them the ability to pay for care other than emergency stabilization, which reduces the probability of them having such care denied or delayed.
• PhasmaFelis 13y ago
  > Hospitals don't let uninsured people die Irrelevant, even if true. Uninsured people often don't go to the hospital until it's too late, because they know the expense will ruin them and they're hoping it will get better on its own.