The Harvard Medical School released a study 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
http://bravenewfilms.org/blog/?p=71924
Monday, October 12, 2009
Over 60% of US Bankruptcies Attributable to Medical Problems
By Elsevier Health Sciences - Jun 7, 2009 10:54:46 AM
Most victims are middle class, well-educated and have health insurance
In 2007, before the current economic downturn, an American family filed for bankruptcy in the aftermath of illness every 90 seconds; three-quarters of them were insured. Over 60% of all bankruptcies in the United States in 2007 were driven by medical incidents. In an article published in the August 2009 issue of the American Journal of Medicine, the results of the first-ever national random-sample survey of bankruptcy filers shows that illnesses and medical bills contribute to a large and increasing share of bankruptcies. The share of bankruptcies attributable to medical problems rose by 50% between 2001 and 2007.
Following up on a 2001 study in 5 states, where medical problems contributed to at least 46.2% of all bankruptcies, researchers from Cambridge Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Harvard Law School and Ohio University surveyed a random national sample of 2,314 bankruptcy filers in 2007, abstracted their court records, and interviewed 1,032 of them. They designated bankruptcies as "medical" based on debtors' stated reasons for filing, income loss due to illness and the magnitude of their medical debts.
Using identical definitions in 2001 and 2007, the share of bankruptcies attributable to medical problems rose by 49.6%. The odds that a bankruptcy had a medical cause were 2.38 fold higher in 2007 than in 2001.
According to the study, a number of circumstances propelled many middle-class, insured Americans into bankruptcy. For 92% of the medically bankrupt, high medical bills directly contributed to their bankruptcy. Many families with continuous coverage found themselves under-insured, responsible for thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs. Out-of-pocket medical costs averaged $17,943 for all medically bankrupt families: $26,971 for uninsured patients; $17,749 for those with private insurance at the outset; $14,633 for those with Medicaid; $12,021 for those with Medicare; and $6,545 for those with VA/military coverage. For patients who initially had private coverage but lost it, the family's out-of-pocket expenses averaged $22,568.
Because almost all insurance is linked to employment, a medical event can trigger loss of coverage. Nationally, a quarter of firms cancel coverage immediately when an employee suffers a disabling illness; another quarter does so within a year. Income loss due to illness was also common, but nearly always coupled with high medical bills.
Writing in the article, David U. Himmelstein, M.D., states, "The US health care financing system is broken, and not only for the poor and uninsured. Middle class families frequently collapse under the strain of a health care system that treats physical wounds, but often inflicts fiscal ones."
"This study provides further evidence that the US health care system is broken," according to James E. Dalen, M.D., M.P.H., University of Arizona College of Medicine, Tucson. "Medical bankruptcy is almost a unique American phenomenon, which does not occur in countries that have national health insurance. These long-time advocates of a single payer system give us another compelling reason to work toward this goal as a nation."
Reference: The article is "Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study" by David U. Himmelstein, M.D., Deborah Thorne, Ph.D., Elizabeth Warren, J.D., and Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H. It appears in the American Journal of Medicine, Volume 122, Issue 8 (August 2009) published by Elsevier.
http://www.disabled-world.com/disability/statistics/medical-expenses-bankruptcy.php
Most victims are middle class, well-educated and have health insurance
In 2007, before the current economic downturn, an American family filed for bankruptcy in the aftermath of illness every 90 seconds; three-quarters of them were insured. Over 60% of all bankruptcies in the United States in 2007 were driven by medical incidents. In an article published in the August 2009 issue of the American Journal of Medicine, the results of the first-ever national random-sample survey of bankruptcy filers shows that illnesses and medical bills contribute to a large and increasing share of bankruptcies. The share of bankruptcies attributable to medical problems rose by 50% between 2001 and 2007.
Following up on a 2001 study in 5 states, where medical problems contributed to at least 46.2% of all bankruptcies, researchers from Cambridge Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Harvard Law School and Ohio University surveyed a random national sample of 2,314 bankruptcy filers in 2007, abstracted their court records, and interviewed 1,032 of them. They designated bankruptcies as "medical" based on debtors' stated reasons for filing, income loss due to illness and the magnitude of their medical debts.
Using identical definitions in 2001 and 2007, the share of bankruptcies attributable to medical problems rose by 49.6%. The odds that a bankruptcy had a medical cause were 2.38 fold higher in 2007 than in 2001.
According to the study, a number of circumstances propelled many middle-class, insured Americans into bankruptcy. For 92% of the medically bankrupt, high medical bills directly contributed to their bankruptcy. Many families with continuous coverage found themselves under-insured, responsible for thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs. Out-of-pocket medical costs averaged $17,943 for all medically bankrupt families: $26,971 for uninsured patients; $17,749 for those with private insurance at the outset; $14,633 for those with Medicaid; $12,021 for those with Medicare; and $6,545 for those with VA/military coverage. For patients who initially had private coverage but lost it, the family's out-of-pocket expenses averaged $22,568.
Because almost all insurance is linked to employment, a medical event can trigger loss of coverage. Nationally, a quarter of firms cancel coverage immediately when an employee suffers a disabling illness; another quarter does so within a year. Income loss due to illness was also common, but nearly always coupled with high medical bills.
Writing in the article, David U. Himmelstein, M.D., states, "The US health care financing system is broken, and not only for the poor and uninsured. Middle class families frequently collapse under the strain of a health care system that treats physical wounds, but often inflicts fiscal ones."
"This study provides further evidence that the US health care system is broken," according to James E. Dalen, M.D., M.P.H., University of Arizona College of Medicine, Tucson. "Medical bankruptcy is almost a unique American phenomenon, which does not occur in countries that have national health insurance. These long-time advocates of a single payer system give us another compelling reason to work toward this goal as a nation."
Reference: The article is "Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study" by David U. Himmelstein, M.D., Deborah Thorne, Ph.D., Elizabeth Warren, J.D., and Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H. It appears in the American Journal of Medicine, Volume 122, Issue 8 (August 2009) published by Elsevier.
http://www.disabled-world.com/disability/statistics/medical-expenses-bankruptcy.php
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