More Than 26,000 Uninsured Americans Die Each Year ...(for lack of insurance)

[Stuart G]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47892292/ns/health-health_care/

WASHINGTON — More than 26,000 working-age adults die prematurely in the United States each year because they lack health insurance, according to a study published ahead of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling on President Barack Obama's health care reform law.
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The study, released on Wednesday by the consumer advocacy group Families USA, estimates that a record high of 26,100 people aged 25 to 64 died for lack of health coverage in 2010, up from 20,350 in 2005 and 18,000 in 2000.

That makes for a rate of about 72 deaths per day, or three per hour.

The nonprofit group based its findings on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a 2002 Institute of Medicine study that showed the uninsured face a 25 percent higher risk of death than those with coverage

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A national tragedy and world wide embarrassment for the United States.
Obviously Republicans don't give a damn

[OffWithTheirHeads]

1. Lack of insurance didn't kill them. Lack of healthcare did.

Not the same thing.

[kestrel91316]

2. The lack of healthcare for them is a direct result of their not having

"insurance" to pay for it.

But I'm sure they all chose to not purchase insurance, so it's all ok, right?

[OffWithTheirHeads]

4. My point was that people shouldn't have to buy some overpriced

piece of paper from some top heavy multinational corporation to get health care. Healthcare should be a right. Something you have access to simply because you live here.
I have insurance. Some of the best and most expensive money can buy through my union. After two operations last year and after the insurance, My savings have almost been wiped out just from the co-pays. What the fuck good is insurance if you still can't afford to go to the doctor?

[kestrel91316]

5. My point exactly. Basically healthcare in the US is now limited to the wealthy and the lucky.

I happen to think medical "insurance" should be illegal.

SINGLE. PAYER. NOW.

[postulater]

3. That's tragic. But even worse is

the number who die FROM medical care.


12,000 due to unnecessary surgery
7,000 due to medication errors in hospitals
20,000 due to other errors in hospitals
80,000 due to nosocomial infections in hospitals
106,000 due to non-error, negative effects of drugs

From Wikipedia iatrogenesis.

[dflprincess]

6. They die because they could not get the health care they needed in time.

If all they're able to get is a high deductible "health" plan this will not change. They will still not be able to get health care when they need it.

[area51]

7. +1

And the number is 100,000 unnecessary deaths per year inside the U.S. due to lack of health care.

Where are the so-called "pro-lifers"? Shouldn't they be getting off their lazy asses and fighting for single-payer health care?

Anyone who has a pre-existing condition and has to go to to a first-world country should be applying for medical amnesty in the foreign country, instead of trying to get on a flight back to the U.S. Of course it won't work to keep them in the 1st-world country, but at least it will help bring world-wide attention to the insane health care system here which is rationed by personal wealth.