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Each day, two Ohioans die because they lack health coverage
Published on Sunday, Mar 23, 2008
In releasing similar reports around the country, the group is seeking to emphasize the dire need to move toward a health-care system that makes coverage available and affordable to all.
Ron Pollack, the executive director of Families USA, offered this chilling calculation: The mortality rate nationwide due to lack of health insurance is about twice as high as the number of deaths caused by homicide. Surely, a crime wave threatening 47 million people would elicit a quick response, Congress and the president rushing to the rescue.
The report severely undermines the notion, advanced by many, that because hospital emergency rooms must accept everyone, heath care is available to all. The report explains that by the time uninsured patients arrive, it often is too late. Due to a lack of preventive care or delays in seeing a primary-care physician, the visit to the emergency room ends up making little difference.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, long an advocate for universal coverage, rightly pointed to the report as showing how the uninsured ''get it every way.'' By that, the Ohio Democrat means they are less likely to have a primary-care doctor, less likely to get screenings for preventive care and more likely to delay going to the doctor. When they do go? They pay more, unable to benefit from the lower rates negotiated by insurers.
A second report released last week, by the Milken Institute, buttressed the findings of Families USA, concluding that the cost of chronic diseases totals $57 billion a year in Ohio, due to treatment and lost productivity. The study argued the sum could be reduced by $40 billion through basic preventive care.
Such data provide further persuasive evidence of the wisdom in universal coverage. For those without coverage, the benefit of an affordable plan could well be their lives. The value hardly stops there. The cost of providing health care to the uninsured is shared by all who do have coverage, and is reflected in higher premiums and copays. Put another way, universal coverage benefits everyone.
Get the full article here.
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