Study: 45,000 Uninsured Die a Year

(CBS)  A year-and-a-half ago, Daniel Durate started dropping a lot of weight, going from 290 to 240 pounds.

Having quit his full-time job at a dairy to freelance in the catering business -- gambling he wouldn't need the insurance -- Durate didn't go to the doctor until he could no longer eat. The diagnosis: Stage 4 stomach cancer. Medicaid paid for his surgery last April.

"Would you have been in a different place if you had health insurance?" asked CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod.

"Totally," Durate said. "I would have been able to go to a doctor like maybe last year."

"We found that 45,000 Americans are dying annually, due to lack of health insurance," said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler.

Woolhandler was part of a team that tracked more than 9,000 people for up to 13 years, comparing the health of those with insurance to those without. After factoring in education and income, smoking, drinking and obesity, researchers found that the uninsured had about a 40 percent higher risk of death, linking 45,000 American deaths a year to lack of insurance. In 1993 it was 25 percent.

Read the full report

CBSNews.com Special Report: Health Care Reform

"We have lots of good treatments for high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol that can now prevent complications, that can now lengthen our patients' lives, but we can't do anything for our patients if they can't afford to come to our offices," Woolhandler said.

John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis said the study results are exaggerated. Researchers don't know how the uninsured died or if they were uninsured the entire time they were being tracked. But even this critic agrees with the basic premise.

"I think you can't trust the results," Goodman said. "Having said that, we ought to do something for the uninsured."

It's not getting easier even for those who do have insurance. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average cost of a family health insurance policy is now more than $13,000, having more than doubled this decade.

[cleric60]

"Totally," Durate said. "I would have been able to go to a doctor like maybe last year."

"We found that 45,000 Americans are dying annually, due to lack of health insurance," said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler.

He could have entered any one of our nation's ER departments, with his stomach pains and with "charity care" he would have been treated.
Regretffully, he stated in the "state of denial" too long. The lack of insurance assisted him in his thought process.
I'm still wondering where this subject comes up with "45,000 US citizens dying due to the lack of insurance.
I have served in three faith based hospitals and we have treated, care for all our patients, be they insured, under-insured or not insured.
For years now, I have heard this 45,000 are dying due to the lack of insurance, sometimes it goes up to 48,000 to 50,000, but I can't find the source who is coming up with these numbers.

[ktbv]

Here is the study:http://pnhp.org/excessdeaths/health-insurance-and-mortality-in-US-adults.pdf

[erb0087]

("Guards Watched As Girl Beaten at Bus Depot")

These guards were probably strict contructionists of the Constitution. Original Intent men and women.

There is no mention anywhere in the Constitution about what one must do about girls beaten at bus depots.

Actually there is no hint anywhere in that document about semi-automatic weapons of the kind used in the Virginia Tech Massacre.

The Founding Fathers in the 2nd Amendment could only have been talking about 18th century "Arms" like muskets.

To try to stretch their words to cover semi-automatic weapons has to be the most egregious imaginable violation of their Original Intent.

[erb0087]

by KrlyQ September 18, 2009 5:48 PM EDT
The Constitution does not support altruism in any form.
=========================================

Not explicitly, the Constitution doesn't. It seems a lot of Americans prefer to look away, to look after Number One. ("Guards Watched As Girl Beaten at Bus Depot")

There are a lot of other things the Constitution doesn't support.

Like marriage being strictly for heterosexuals, or partial birth abortion being banned by law.

You know, it's funny, but one of the greatest sources for our Constitution and our Bill of Rights was an English philosopher named John Locke. Thomas Jefferson wrote: "Bacon, Locke and Newton... I consider them as the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception, and as having laid the foundation of those superstructures which have been raised in the Physical and Moral sciences".

And yet John Locke cannot be called an altruist.

Detractors note that (in 1671) Locke was a major investor in the English slave-trade through the Royal Africa Company, as well as through his participation in drafting the Fundamental Constitution of the Carolinas while Shaftesbury's secretary, which established a feudal aristocracy and gave a master absolute power over his slaves.

They note that as a secretary to the Council of Trade and Plantations (1673-4) and a member of the Board of Trade (1696-1700) Locke was, in fact, "one of just half a dozen men who created and supervised both the colonies and their iniquitous systems of servitude". Some see his statements on unenclosed property as having justified the displacement of the Native Americans.

Because of his opposition to aristocracy and slavery in his major writings, he is accused of hypocrisy, or of caring only for the liberty of English capitalists.

[payback108]

and how can

[mary-miami]

Why not have a national election and ask the American people whether or not they want free health care for all? It is the American way to ask the people what they want. This is a government for the people, by the people. Have a national election and have people vote Yes or No, Do they want free national healthcare for all.

[CougarU]

Because such an election would be meaningless. The doctors, nurses, admin assistants, floor sweepers, and tray-bringers all want to be paid. They like feeding their kids and want to pay their bill. It goes further than that, to the people who built the place, and put in the electrical lines and the plumbing.

Nobody is going to work for free.

There are two ways to get "free" health care. One is to have the government forcibly take the money from you, the money needed to pay these people. The other is to pay for it without being forced to, and when you see a zero balance at the bottom of the bill that pays these people, you don't owe any more. At that point it's free.

[KrlyQ]

The Constitution does not support altruism in any form. Quoting these figures won't work because statistacally 1,197,877 people die every year in the United States which must mean that the remaining 1,152,877 that die had insurance. In the year 2000 43,000 deaths were due to auto accidents, so should we give up our vehicles? 85,000 deaths were due to alchohol consumption so we should have the federal government pass a law making that illegal; oh wait, they tried that once didn't they?
"Health care reform" will not promote the general welfare. The general welfare is what would benefit everyone. This "reform" or altruism would only benefit some and not others. Those of us who oppose this understand that and understand why it does not fit into what is written in our Constitution. Writing articles for the purpose of getting an emotional response will gain support from those lacking historical understanding of this country, lacking the understanding of how this government should operate according to the laws of the land and those lacking critical thinking.

[unitaryexecutive]

This study appears to have been poorly designed and carried out:

(1) The study did not confirm whether the surveyed persons' claims regarding their insurance status was true or not. So they just took everyone at their word with regards to their insurance status.

(2) The study assessed the individual's status as insured or uninsured BASED ON A SINGLE POINT IN TIME!! This means that if you were uninsured for for one year out of the 13 years you were followed, and that one year coincided with your initial interview, you were considered uninsured despite being insured 92% of the time. Of course, the converse of this is true as well.

(3) The study did not take into account how the deaths occurred. Read that sentence again. The. Study. Doesn't. Care. How. The. Participants. Died. So if you were shot in the head by a burgler, and happened to be uninsured, the study uses your situation to prove that those who are uninsured are more likely to die. This is absurd. A person who is shot in the head died because of a reason wholly unrelated to his status as an uninsured, while a person who died of some health issue that went untreated does matter to the debate. Yet, the study doesn't differentiate between the two situations.

(4) In the words of the article: "researchers found that the uninsured had about a 40 percent higher risk of death." Really? A 40% higher chance of death? OK. I'm insured right now and you know what chance I have of dying? 100%. You know what chance any random uninsured person I pull off the street has of dying? Also 100%. The findings of this study would be much more helpful if they determined the life expectancy of an uninsured person versus an insured one. Because we all die at some point.

(4) FWIW, the study was performed by Physicians for a National Health Program, a single issue advocating organization that promotes -- you guessed it! -- a single payer system for all. I'm sure their results are not biased, but the way the study was designed, I have my doubts.

[Al_Pinto]

"by One_Majesty September 17, 2009 8:07 PM EDT
45,000 Uninsured die a year,
How many insured die a year ???"

The study also said that the uninsured has a 40% higher chance of dying from a medical ailment than the insured. Maybe the insurers think that 40% is a low number, but seriously, would you like to play with that chance? About the public option, Medicare is a public option. Is there any private insurer that will insure senior citizens with ailments if there were no Medicare (not just Medicare Part A or D, but the entire thing)?

[payback108]

And I am a independent I did not vote for bush or obama

[payback108]

Ant your wife is ripping people off now you know where health reform
is needed an as for me paying my bills out of my pocket has nothing to do with your insurance.