45,000 Die Each Year Because They're Uninsured

A much-discussed study put out by Harvard Medical School this week contains a shocking statistic: 45,000 deaths each year can be tied to lack of health insurance. The number by itself might not mean anything. But it amounts to a 40% greater likelihood of death than for those with coverage. It also represents a dramatic leap from the original Institute of Medicine study using similar methodology in 2001, where 18,000 deaths were linked to lack of insurance. In short, things are getting worse.

You know your health care system is in trouble when all the trends are in the wrong direction. The cost of health insurance –- which more than doubled in the past decade -– continues to go up. That leads to two out of three businesses contemplating cutting back on benefits and 9% eliminating benefits entirely. Add that to the number of people who lost their jobs and with it their health insurance, and you have perhaps the inevitable end result: an increase in the uninsured, even taking into account an increase in who gets public coverage through Medicaid, Medicare and SCHIP. That means an ever-increasing number of people putting off care because they can’t afford it, more using the emergency room for primary care because they have nowhere else to go.

We know a lot about who wind up being the uninsured. Hint: it’s neither the very rich nor the very poor. 8 in 10 come from families where at least one person works full time. 1 in 8 are children (although thanks to government-run SCHIP, that number is going down). The fastest growing income segment is individuals and families in the $50,000-$70,000 range, overwhelmingly because of a change in their employer sponsored insurance. And as we learn, they have a health risk with an increased chance of mortality comparable to being a former smoker, simply because they can’t afford quality health care.

That’s worth keeping in mind for the weeks ahead as we hit the next phase of the fight in Congress. The main question of health care reform is not just whether the House bill or Baucus bill should become the basis for legislation; it’s not the question of left vs. right; and in some respect it’s no longer even about whether health care was a right or a privilege. It’s about when will we look at the damage caused by not fixing the problem and finally say, “Enough!”

(Photo credit:http://www.flickr.com/photos/ari/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)