45,000 Deaths per Year Linked to Lack of Health Insurance? It’s Their Fault for Being Lazy!
Or this is at least how I interpret Kiplinger‘s coverage of the health care debate. But let’s start from the beginning: A study by Harvard Medical School researchers has found that nearly 45,000 deaths every year can be linked to the lack of medical insurance and the inability of those lacking coverage to access good health care [link to Reuters story].
The final figure of almost 45,000 people has been obtained after analyzing data from 9,000 patients tracked by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. As all statistical results, it will be subject to some margin of error, but its implications can hardly be overstated:
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Lack of medical insurance is responsible for more deaths than drunk driving and homicide combined.
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According to the study, the uninsured have a 40% higher risk of death than the insured.
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The finding adds to the factors that led to the US being ranked 37th in a recent World Health Organization health-care ranking, slightly better than Cuba and below all other industrialized countries.
And this takes me back to a disturbing paragraph I read in Kiplinger’s October 2009 editorial, where Janet Bodnar writes:
I received an e-mail from an interest group helpfully providing me with a list of horror stories from people who couldn’t get affordable health coverage. I forwarded the message to contributing editor Kim Lankford, our expert on health insurance -who proceeded to suggest solutions to all their problems. […] [She wrote back:] “I wonder how hard these people tried to find better deals”.
This, I have to admit, is a work of genius. With one single sentence, Ms. Lankford brushes aside the so-called horror stories of 45,000 people every year, including those of the freelance cameraman with a burst appendix; the 51-year-old mother with undiagnosed heart disease; and the 26-year-old with unusual fatigue who died lacking health insurance -these three cases were covered this morning on CNN’s front page [link to CNN’s “Dying from lack of health insurance”].
Let me state my position on this debate clearly: I don’t condone the use of scare tactics by any of the two sides. And I’m not acquainted enough with the latest version of Obama’s proposal for reform to say that it’s the perfect solution. I’m sure it isn’t. But I don’t have any doubt that our system is broken, and I’m glad that the possibility of reforming is at least being talked about.
To suggest that the people who don’t have health insurance and end up dying for it just aren’t trying hard enough to find bargain-priced plans in our “quite healthy market” -Kiplinger again- is outrageous. And guess what? In countries like the U.K. or France, which spend a much lower fraction of their GDP in health insurance than we do, how hard you look for affordable coverage isn’t even an issue, since every citizen has the complete coverage that only the richest in this country can afford.
So this is my message to Kiplinger: while you -hopefully- reflect on the wisdom of minimizing the health-care drama into a simple “people should try harder to find better deals”, I’m canceling my subscription. Please be a little more sensitive next time.
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What’s your opinion on this issue? Is it true that all uninsured people could find affordable, quality care if they tried?
PLEASE SHARE YOUR OPINION HERE
On the road to $1M 
September 18, 2009 at 1:41 pm
I wonder how many Brits and Canadians die each year because they HAVE government controlled insurance?
September 18, 2009 at 1:57 pm
That’s really a great point you raise, John. But remember that they spend much less than we do in health care as a fraction of GDP. According to OECD data, in 2007 the US spend 16% of GDP in health care, compared to 8.4% in the UK, 10.1% in Canada, and 11% in France.
So even if the same proportion of people died in those countries “because they HAVE government-controlled insurance”, they’d still be saving millions of $ with respect to us.
(Of course if a much larger fraction of people were dying in those countries, then we’d have a point that we’re spending our money more effectively. Somebody should definitely do a study and find out)
September 18, 2009 at 2:58 pm
I was scared that you were going to side with Kiplinger. Good post.
Whereas the solution isn’t the best, the problem is real. We should all be able to agree on that.
September 18, 2009 at 3:06 pm
No way! As you say, the problem is real. By putting the blame on people for not researching their options better we’re just closing our eyes.
Plus, what about those who do look hard and do try to shop around for the best plan and still end up getting dropped or having their premiums multiplied once they get ill?
I think that if we were all able to agree that we’re facing a problem and worked together we’d end up with something better than a watered-down reform that tries to please everyone at the same time. Unfortunately, there are too many powerful interests who wouldn’t want us to agree even on the basics!
September 18, 2009 at 4:53 pm
I think Ms Lankford needs a reallity check. If she was on the other side of the fence she might see that the normal working person , most of the time, is not paid a living wage. And the Insurance companies charge triple what a living wage is. I am speaking from experience. I was not paid a living wage and could not afford the company insurance as group insurance. And the private was even more. So My son and I do not have insurance. I work to jobs just to pay mortgage, bills, and food. AM I LAZY?????????
September 18, 2009 at 5:07 pm
@Pixie I couldn’t agree more. My partner and I consider ourselves lucky to have the supposedly fantastic coverage offered through my employer, but we still were billed almost $2,000 last month after he visited his doctor because of a strong allergic reaction -supposedly due to a pre-existing condition.
I don’t think we could have shopped for better and cheaper coverage. And clearly your situation is much worse. I hope you may be able to get some insurance at some point, and I believe that it’s a shame that a great country like ours lets kids like your son go without insurance. If Obama’s health care reform served at least to ensure coverage of all children, I’d consider it a reason to be proud and celebrate. Good luck!
September 19, 2009 at 7:45 am
It’s called personal responsibility!!! When I was young, single, living on my own off of student loans….I bought health insurance for myself when I was not eligible under my parents. It cost me close to $300 per month and didn’t even include birth control pills (I don’t want to have children on welfare thank you) which is the only medication I took. I hardly went to the doctor except for preventative stuff. But felt that I needed it in case something did happen. I am sure some of the people mentioned on that article could have afforded health insurance but choose not to and instead eat until they explode or invest in a new iphone or premium cable television. Give me a break.
September 19, 2009 at 1:19 pm
I agree with some things you say. It’s true that some people will not act in responsible ways when faced with choices such as whether to buy health insurance. But I disagree that this is a strong enough reason to for us to forget about uninsured people and blame their problems on themselves for 2 reasons:
1) children aren’t allowed to make decisions for themselves. A reform of the system that covers all kids is necessary, because they’re not responsible if their parents are making wrong choices and not buying insurance for them.
2) some people are not being irresponsible, they simply CAN’T afford health insurance. The minimum wage in California is $8 per hour. That’s $400 per week if you work 50 hours a week (supposing you can find a job in this economic climate), before taking out Social Security taxes, the cost of gas to get to your job, etc. I truly believe that many people living on the minimum wage in Los Angeles are not able to afford $300 a month for health insurance.
And I don’t want to get into the problem of those who have health insurance and are still billed astronomical amounts or denied potentially life-saving treatment because their insurance company considers it experimental, since it’s not the topic of the post.
So personal responsibility is important, I agree, but there’s also such a thing as social responsibility, whereby a society helps the ones that are less well-off or, for circumstances of life (illness of themselves or their children, disability, accidents), got left behind. That their only choice is to declare bankruptcy or die speaks volumes about they type of society we are (and I honestly believe we don’t wanna be).
September 20, 2009 at 5:56 pm
The number is pure crap.
The number is simply a tool meant to promote an agenda and achieve a specific result.
September 21, 2009 at 7:05 am
There are many programs to help the ones that don’t have the money for Doctors /Hospitals . Here is the catch, you must be POOR . They don’t take in consideration that you are in debt or your cost of computer/TV etc . If a person dies because they don’t have insurance ,what did they die from ? Stupidity – IMO . If you can not pay they will set up a payment program for you or you can get help threw the government. You can pay as little as $5. a month to the hospital and they are happy you are trying to pay it. So many don’t , but you can find them at the bar or shopping ,Online ,computers etc .
September 21, 2009 at 11:37 am
2,000,000 people die each year from the ban on DDT. The ban was a special interest agenda full of misinformation that has led to millions dead.
Am I to believe this too?
September 21, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Here’s another statistic… Millions and millions of senior citizens die early because during their lifetime, the government taxed too much of their income, and as a result the seniors didn’t have enough saved up to pay for medical care in their old age.
Therefore, the best solution is to lower / eliminate income taxes. Over a 40-50 year working career, that federal income tax could’ve been used to take care of their retirement needs.
September 21, 2009 at 12:30 pm
@Michael Hsu The difference between your statistic and that of the 45,000 people is that the latter was computed by researchers from Harvard Medical School (which I don’t suppose is known for being partisan) applying a scientific methodology: they compared the group of people who don’t have insurance with otherwise similar people who do have insurance and computed the difference in their death rates.
You may say that you don’t believe the assumptions they made to justify that the individuals they compare are indeed comparable. But you can’t claim that millions of senior citizens die every year due to income taxes until you compare them with another group who pay less income taxes and find that the former die earlier.
I’m afraid that the existing evidence goes against your figure: people in countries like the UK, Canada, Sweden and France pay much higher income taxes than we do during their lifetime, but their life expectancy is higher than it is in the US. Of course there are other factors that can explain this, but I don’t know of a single scientific study that supports that income tax during your lifetime harms your life expectancy.
The question is not how much you pay, but how efficiently it is used. If you want to reduce income taxes and save by increasing Government efficiency, I’m all for it, but good luck convincing Washington to spend less money. If, on the other hand, you are for reducing income taxes and in exchange spending less in education and roads, you’ll just see the competitiveness of our country decrease more than it has in the past decade. Or do you want to save by sending less equipment to our troops around the world?
I’m all for informed discussion but, in my opinion, figures that don’t stand scientific scrutiny serve one only purpose: scaremongering.
September 21, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Funny how people think that lack of insurance killed these people. The real problem is that these people were paranoid about their credit being ruined more than they were worried about their health. Any emergency room would have treated them. They could even have seen a doctor for a regular checkup at the emergency room. They chose not to.
September 21, 2009 at 1:03 pm
The man mentioned in the article did not die from a lack of Health Insurance. He die from a lack of common sense. If you do not have the sense to go to the hospital when you think something is wrong, insurance or not, it’s your fault.
Personnel responsiblity people!!!!
September 21, 2009 at 6:00 pm
There are about 40,000 who die in a vehicle crash every year. Yet, the government spends billions of dollars to reduce this number. On the other hand, it does not do squat when it comes to medical insurance. Just saving 10,000 lives by providing health care insurance is equivalent to the entire budget the federal government spends on highways ($40 billion). More information here:
http://open.salon.com/blog/kanuk/2009/09/19/death_panel_results_45000_annual_deaths