From Joan Brunwasser: Exclusive Interview with Dr. Steffie Woolhandler
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Exclusive-Interview-with-D-by-Joan-Brunwasser-090920-310.html The only way to affordably cover all Americans in through a Medicare-for-all, single-payer approach, which would generate $300-$400 billion in administrative savings annually-- enough to cover all uninsured, and to plug the gaps in coverage for Americans with only partial coverage. Obviously, Medicare-for-all is anathema to the insurance industry. Politicians are protecting the insurance industry's gigantic profits--and sacrificing American lives. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mark Crispin Miller <<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]> Date: Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 9:03 AM Subject: [MCM] No health insurance = 45,000 US deaths per year (Harvard Medical School) To: <mailto:[email protected]>[email protected] Study links 45,000 U.S. deaths to lack of insurance By Susan Heavey <http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE58G6W520090917>http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE58G6W520090917 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year -- one every 12 minutes -- in large part because they lack health insurance and cannot 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 [through] 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. The findings come amid a fierce debate over Democrats' efforts to reform the nation's $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare industry by expanding coverage and reducing healthcare costs. President Barack Obama has made the overhaul a top domestic policy priority, but his plan has been besieged by critics and slowed by intense political battles in Congress, with the insurance and healthcare industries fighting some parts of the plan. The Harvard study, funded by a federal research grant, was published in the online edition of the American Journal of Public Health. It was released by Physicians for a National Health Program, which favors government-backed or "single-payer" health insurance. An similar study in 1993 found those without insurance had a 25 percent greater risk of death, according to the Harvard group. The Institute of Medicine later used that data in its 2002 estimate showing about 18,000 people a year died because they lacked coverage. Part of the increased risk now is due to the growing ranks of the uninsured, Himmelstein said. Roughly 46.3 million people in the United States lacked coverage in 2008, the U.S. Census Bureau reported last week, up from 45.7 million in 2007. Another factor is that there are fewer places for the uninsured to get good care. Public hospitals and clinics are shuttering or scaling back across the country in cities like New Orleans, Detroit and others, he said. Study co-author Dr. Steffie Woolhandler said the findings show that without proper care, uninsured people are more likely to die from complications associated with preventable diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. Some critics called the study flawed. The National Center for Policy Analysis, a Washington think tank that backs a free-market approach to health care, said researchers overstated the death risk and did not track how long subjects were uninsured. Woolhandler said that while Physicians for a National Health Program supports government-backed coverage, the Harvard study's six researchers closely followed the methodology used in the 1993 study conducted by researchers in the federal government as well as the University of Rochester in New York. The Harvard researchers analyzed data on about 9,000 patients tracked by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics through the year 2000. They excluded older Americans because those aged 65 or older are covered by the U.S. Medicare insurance program. "For any doctor ... 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," said Woolhandler, a professor of medicine at Harvard and a primary care physician in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ========================= In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. You are receiving this message because you are signed up to be on Baltimore News Network's News List. To be removed, please send a reply message with REMOVE in the subject line. For information about Baltimore News Network, Inc., a 501(c)(3) organization, or to make a donation to BNN via PayPal, visit <http://baltimorechronicle.com>http://baltimorechronicle.com. <http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE58G6W520090917>http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE58G6W520090917 Study links 45,000 U.S. deaths to lack of insurance Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:11pm EDT Email | <http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USTRE58G6W520090917>Print | Share | Reprints | Single Page [-] Text [+] 1 of 1Full Size By <http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=Susan.Heavey>Susan Heavey WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year -- one every 12 minutes -- in large part because they lack health insurance and cannot 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 [through] 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. The findings come amid a fierce debate over Democrats' efforts to reform the nation's $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare industry by expanding coverage and reducing healthcare costs. President <http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/barackobama>Barack Obama has made the overhaul a top domestic policy priority, but his plan has been besieged by critics and slowed by intense political battles in Congress, with the insurance and healthcare industries fighting some parts of the plan. The Harvard study, funded by a federal research grant, was published in the online edition of the American Journal of Public Health. It was released by Physicians for a National Health Program, which favors government-backed or "single-payer" health insurance. An similar study in 1993 found those without insurance had a 25 percent greater risk of death, according to the Harvard group. The Institute of Medicine later used that data in its 2002 estimate showing about 18,000 people a year died because they lacked coverage. Part of the increased risk now is due to the growing ranks of the uninsured, Himmelstein said. Roughly 46.3 million people in the United States lacked coverage in 2008, the U.S. Census Bureau reported last week, up from 45.7 million in 2007. Another factor is that there are fewer places for the uninsured to get good care. Public hospitals and clinics are shuttering or scaling back across the country in cities like New Orleans, Detroit and others, he said. Study co-author Dr. Steffie Woolhandler said the findings show that without proper care, uninsured people are more likely to die from complications associated with preventable diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. Some critics called the study flawed. The National Center for Policy Analysis, a Washington think tank that backs a free-market approach to health care, said researchers overstated the death risk and did not track how long subjects were uninsured. Woolhandler said that while Physicians for a National Health Program supports government-backed coverage, the Harvard study's six researchers closely followed the methodology used in the 1993 study conducted by researchers in the federal government as well as the University of Rochester in New York. The Harvard researchers analyzed data on about 9,000 patients tracked by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics through the year 2000. They excluded older Americans because those aged 65 or older are covered by the U.S. Medicare insurance program. "For any doctor ... 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," said Woolhandler, a professor of medicine at Harvard and a primary care physician in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ========================= In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. You are receiving this message because you are signed up to be on Baltimore News Network's News List. To be removed, please send a reply message with REMOVE in the subject line. For information about Baltimore News Network, Inc., a 501(c)(3) organization, or to make a donation to BNN via PayPal, visit <http://baltimorechronicle.com>http://baltimorechronicle.com. Content-Type: image/jpeg; name="r.jpeg 1.jpg" Content-ID: <[email protected]> X-Attachment-Id: 0.1 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to Mark Crispin Miller's "News From Underground" newsgroup. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to [email protected] OR go to http://groups.google.com/group/newsfromunderground and click on the "Unsubscribe or change membership" link in the yellow bar at the top of the page, then click the "Unsubscribe" button on the next page. For more News From Underground, visit http://markcrispinmiller.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
<<attachment: r.jpeg 1 1.jpg>>
