Lack of health insurance is killing thousands of people every year

health insurance report

health insurance report

Thousands of working aged adult Americans prematurely and unnecessarily die annually due to lack of coverage.

As the country and the world awaits the decision regarding the constitutionality of the individual mandate for health insurance and the remainder of the health care reform from the United States Supreme Court a study has shown that people are continuing to die needlessly due to a lack of medical coverage.

Shocking study findings were released ahead of the landmark ruling regarding President Obama’s overhaul.

What this Families USA research indicated is that in 2010, there were an estimated 26,100 people from age 25 years to 64 years who died from medical conditions that might have been corrected if those individuals had been covered by health insurance. This statistic has risen significantly from 2005, when it was 20,350, and in 2000 when it was 18,000.

This means three people every hour, 72 people every day, die from a condition that could be treated with coverage.

Families USA is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that used U.S. Census Bureau, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data, in addition to findings from an Institute of Medicine study from 2002, to determine that people who are uninsured have a 25 percent greater risk of death during their adult working years than those who have coverage.

These findings support those that were found in a 2006 nationwide study by the Urban Institute, which found that the number of uninsured and potentially preventable deaths the year before were an estimated 22,000.

Executive director of the Families USA, Ron Pollack, explained that the study was released by the group in order to show the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling in terms of human deaths every year, should they choose to overturn all or part of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Pollack – who is in favor of the healthcare reforms – stated that “Lives are truly on the line.” When speaking about people who don’t have health insurance, he said that “If the Affordable Care Act moves forward and we expand coverage for tens of millions of people, the number of avoidable deaths due to being uninsured will decrease significantly.”

Other related article(s) and resource: http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/20/families-usa-says-26000-die-prematurely-without-health-insurance/

 

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