No Health Insurance? You're Gonna DIE!

[MA-Caver]

Uninsured More Likely to Die, Study Finds


Simply Lacking Health Insurance Can Increase the Risk of Death by 40 Percent

By EMILY WALKER
MedPage Today Staff Writer
Sept. 18, 2009
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/WellnessNews/lack-health-insurance-raises-death-risk/story?id=8606408
WASHINGTON — People without health insurance are 40 percent more likely to die than those with private insurance, according to a new study whose authors say the finding underscores the need to expand coverage to the 46 million who lack it.

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Americans without health insurance have higher risk of death.


According to the report, published today in the Journal of Public Health, lack of health insurance was a factor in the death of as many as 45,000 people in 2005.
Researchers lead by Dr. Andrew Wilper, of the Cambridge Health Alliance, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, conducted a survival analysis of data from 9,000 adults under the age of 64 who were enrolled in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III).

Now, is it me or is this the most dumbest tripe ever put out? Or is it just a scam to frighten people into buying insurance? Or to support the health care plan by the president?

I've been uninsured for YEARS and whenever I've been seriously sick or hurt (requiring stitches et al) then I go to the emergency room. From what I understand the Hippocratic (or is it hypocritical) oath says that doctors HAVE to treat you irregardless of money/no money.
Oh sure they can refer you on down the road I guess but if it's an emergency they have to.

Either way... IMO the statistic is stupid. You've got a 100% chance of dying with or without health care insurance. There are probably lots of people WITH insurance that have died anyway.
To me the survey/research is flawed or skewed and manipulative.

Thoughts? Comments?

 

[arnisador]

You think it's flawed because you disagree with the conclusion? What is it about the methods they used that you find bothersome? I don't think the Journal of Public Health is a well-known Democratic Party front. These are the statisticians for physicians.

 

[CoryKS]

Woohoo! I have insurance, so I'm 60% immortal!

 

[Bob Hubbard]

scam to frighten people

 

[Big Don]

When my brother was 4 he was hit in the FACE by a car after chasing a ball into the street. When at age 30 he had cheekbone implants and major jaw reconstruction after 25 years of braces, he was self employed and uninsured. How did he pay for the $32,000 Doctor's bill?
With cash.

 

[Makalakumu]

When my brother was 4 he was hit in the FACE by a car after chasing a ball into the street. When at age 30 he had cheekbone implants and major jaw reconstruction after 25 years of braces, he was self employed and uninsured. How did he pay for the $32,000 Doctor's bill?
With cash.

Throwing out an anecdote like this is a fallacy. The data shows that you are more likely to DIE without health insurance. Of course we are dealing with the law of averages, but overall, this seems to be true.

 

[Dirty Dog]

The presentation is horrible, but the point they are trying to make is that those without health insurance are less likely to seek routine and/or preventive care. As a result, chronic conditions like hypertension or hyperlipidemia go undiagnosed, and diseases such as cancer are allowed to progress unchecked until they are untreatable.

 

[Sukerkin]

Alarming it may well be but that's a very clear conclusion from an investigation of the impact of the 'risk tax' (aka insurance) on your well being.

Mind you, I haven't time to look into now but I'd like to see what the 'base risk' is before throwing my arms up in despair . After all, if your chance of dying is 1%, then an end-result stat of 1.4% is hardly something to worry about.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

The presentation is horrible, but the point they are trying to make is that those without health insurance are less likely to seek routine and/or preventive care. As a result, chronic conditions like hypertension or hyperlipidemia go undiagnosed, and diseases such as cancer are allowed to progress unchecked until they are untreatable.

This is the crux of the situation!

 

[Cryozombie]

I heard a study on the news yesterday... yes, the government FUNDED IT... are you ready for the conclusions?

Children encouraged to run around and play in the evenings were more likey to be tired at bedtime and sleep.

WOO HOO. Way to spend that Grant Money, Uncle Sam.

Common ****ing sense people. Why is it so Uncommon? We dont need a big study to tell us people who dont have money for treatments are more likely to die... Pointing it out NOW really makes it seems like it is alarmism designed to try and force people into accepting Obama's flawed health care bill, the same way those commercials that try and make it seem like Republicans opposed to the bill are stopping ambulances from getting to the hospital.

 

[chrispillertkd]

Seems like scare tactics to get people to go along with the healthcare overhaul. Not surprising, really, since the president engaged in fear mongering about the recession for months. I lost count of how many times he was on television informing us all that the economy was in "the worst shape since the Great Depression," and then pushing prescriptions similar to those things that lengthened the Depression instead of alleviating it.

A few interesting things from the article:

People without health insurance are 40 percent more likely to die than those with private insurance, according to a new study whose authors say the finding underscores the need to expand coverage to the 46 million who lack it.

The study addresses those without insirance versus those with private insurance. But the proposed healthcare "public option" isn't about private insurance. The study cannot be said to directly address the current situation because it doesn't deal with the uninsured versus those with government-based coverage.

The most it does is argue that the uninsured should get their own private coverage. That would be a good idea given the fact that pretty much all programs the government attempts to run are less than good. Unless anyone here thinks the DMV, the Post Office or the VA system are shining examples of effectiveness. Heck, even Obama pointed out that the U.S. Postal Service couldn't compete with UPS or FedEX (during the course of arguing for his government sponsored healthcare plan :lol.

"Despite widespread acknowledgment that enacting universal coverage would be life saving, doing so remains politically thorny," the study authors said. "Now that health reform is again on the political agenda, health professionals have the opportunity to advocate universal coverage."

This quote demonstrates that the study's authors are interested primarily in the political side of things, not what is best for the people they are studying. The recent IBD poll showed that 45% of all doctors in the U.S. would consider leaving the profession if the healthcare plan is passed. Add to that the fact that each year the population grows by 1% and the number of doctors only increases by 0.8% for a continued lag in the needed number of doctors and you should begin to see the making of a very big problem. You might have your new, shiny government-sponsored (not private) insurance but who is going to treat you? Your "right to healthcare" not with standing, of course.

The study's authors pointed out several limitations. One is that data was collected at a single-point, so that investigators would not know if an uninsured person became insured later on.

So, the bottom line is they don't know. They don't know if the people became insured at a later date but are making suggestions based on their assumption that they did not. And they are suggesting supporting a government-sponsored program, which specifically goes against their own model of uninsured versus privately insured.

That is a study of very limited usefullness to the current debate.

Pax,

Chris

 

[Bill Mattocks]

The presentation is horrible, but the point they are trying to make is that those without health insurance are less likely to seek routine and/or preventive care. As a result, chronic conditions like hypertension or hyperlipidemia go undiagnosed, and diseases such as cancer are allowed to progress unchecked until they are untreatable.

Quoted for truth.

 

[MBuzzy]

When my brother was 4 he was hit in the FACE by a car after chasing a ball into the street. When at age 30 he had cheekbone implants and major jaw reconstruction after 25 years of braces, he was self employed and uninsured. How did he pay for the $32,000 Doctor's bill?
With cash.

Sounds like an argument FOR health insurance to me....I don't want to foot a $32,000 bill - even if I was independently wealthy.

I really don't see how health insurance is a bad thing, based on the cost of care vs cost of insurance ratio. One illness or disease can get you into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

As for the "Emergency room method" for those without health insurance - how is this any better than public health insurance?? The rest of us are paying for it anyway for the majority of people who can't afford it, either through taxes or through higher bills and premiums ourselves, which are required to cover the care being given for free.

As for the study - this is an ABC news report. News outlets are NOTORIOUS for badly quoting and reporting on statistical analysis. Until someone gets their hands on the REAL study....what ABC says doesn't mean a whole lot to me. They probably got the conclusion right, but without knowing the sample size, sampling method, assumptions, sample population, etc....statistics are pretty worthless. You can say ANYTHING with statistics.

either way, it is pretty obvious to me that health insurance is a good thing unless you're rich. Or just eat the costs of yearly exams and tests.

 

[Gordon Nore]

I skimmed the article but didn't learn too much about the study. I could hazard a couple of guesses...

About twenty years ago I worked for a national literacy agency in Canada which partnered with a public health organization to study the link between low literacy and poor health and poor health practices. Not surprisingly, literacy -- or the lack thereof -- was found to be not always a causal factor but a co-factor. Remember, this study is taking place in a country where health insurance is universal and typically perceived as a right.

People with low literacy were typically also people with lower educational attainment and lower incomes. This broad group tended to smoke more, use seat belts less, be less active in leisure time, make poorer nutritional choices, etc.

Jumping over to the US study, I would suppose that the lack of insurance likely is connected to income level or category of work. That being the case, I can see where such a study might yield some mixed results. Generally, it would seem to me, where ones access to health care is impacted by a lack of insurance, there would be a higher rate of health problems, possibly leading to death -- some of these attributable to a lack of care; some to a lack of health-maintenance skills.

Getting back to my Canadian examples, I read an interesting article about my own physician whom I greatly respect, as he works one day a week at two different community agencies treating homeless patients. In the article he explained that he finds a lot of problems that are normally easily treated, but left unresolved, become more complicated for the physician to treat and for the patient to manage.

The lesson there is that our system of equal billing and universal health care is not -- in an of itself -- a panacea for low-income consumers. We've found here that a variety of models, such as community health centres, staffed with trained health promoters, nutritionists, etc., are helpful in bringing health and health maintenance to diverse communities.