Acetone wrote:

laklak wrote:And we should believe her because?

It's from a Harvard study in 2009.

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2 ... -coverage/

Earlier studies found less people died because of lack of insurance average seems to be around ~30k annually.

It's worth noting (again) that such figures are pre-ACA.

purplerat wrote:

Acetone wrote:

laklak wrote:And we should believe her because?

It's from a Harvard study in 2009.

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2 ... -coverage/

Earlier studies found less people died because of lack of insurance average seems to be around ~30k annually.

It's worth noting (again) that such figures are pre-ACA.

Yeah.

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2 ... -coverage/

"We doctors have many new ways to prevent deaths from hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease — but only if patients can get into our offices and afford their medications.”

You know, that $60 office visit just to be seen by the doctor, the $120 X-Ray just to make sure that wheezing you are experiencing might not be from a broken rib despite no pain indicating a broken rib is likely, and that expensive prescription medication you don't really need because you most likely have a virus, but we're prescribing it anyways and strongly recommend you take it. We will see you in a week, and make sure you bring another $60.

I'm sorry if doctors are saying they are losing patients because they aren't coming in because they cannot afford it the one person who has control of that are: doctors. They can lower their costs. They choose not to because they want to make a profit. I don't blame them as I have stated being a doctor takes a lot of time and money and they want to earn back that time and money spent. But blaming the fact that the government is not paying them their fat checks for cause of people's death is rather disturbing.

Lol, doctors have no problem earning back what they put into their practices.

Teague wrote:

Acetone wrote:

Teague wrote:

willhud9 wrote:

People are dying in droves?

123.28 people a day - I'd cal lthe droves.

Is that the number of people dying without medical care of medically treatable illnesses because they couldn't afford it?

As I understand it, yes. It's 45000 a year dying because they can't afford to pay for medical care.

Correction: The seven year old study that used data 9 to 20 year old data at the time found that "Lack of health insurance is associated with as many as 44,789 deaths per year in the United States". Not that 45,000 people are dying every year because they can't afford medical care and or health insurance.

They couldn't say caused by or because of, because there was really no way to establish causation only correlation. For example if a guy has an asymptomatic aneurysm that suddenly ruptures and he dies on the spot, insurance would not have saved him and not having insurance didn't kill him. But, his death will be put into the "associated with lack of health insurance" category, thus inflating the numbers.

I don't doubt that there are people that die because they don't see a doctor or people that could have lived longer if they had seen a doctor and that not having insurance makes it less likely to see a doctor but this study isn't the only one, it's just the study that came up with the highest number of deaths associated with lack of insurance, so it's the number used by promoters of a national single payer health system such as PNHP; an organization that had two of it's founding members on the study team.

In studies going back to 1993 the numbers have ranged from a 3% higher risk factor to the 40% higher risk factor of the 2009 study. The low 3% number coming from the conservative/libertarian CATO Institute and the high 40% number coming from a group that openly advocates for universal health care, with the rest of the studies coming in at 20% - 26% higher risk factors. And in those studies the accounting for people that would have died with or without health insurances remains, and those that are without get put in the "lack of health insurance" category.

Yes, it's hard to imagine that lack of insurance would result in lack of health care. Quite the stretch.

Oldskeptic wrote:Correction: The seven year old study that used data 9 to 20 year old data at the time found that "Lack of health insurance is associated with as many as 44,789 deaths per year in the United States". Not that 45,000 people are dying every year because they can't afford medical care and or health insurance.

They couldn't say caused by or because of, because there was really no way to establish causation only correlation. For example if a guy has an asymptomatic aneurysm that suddenly ruptures and he dies on the spot, insurance would not have saved him and not having insurance didn't kill him. But, his death will be put into the "associated with lack of health insurance" category, thus inflating the numbers.

Did you not read the study? Or did you not understand it?

"Lack of health insurance is associated with as many as 44,789 deaths per year in the United States"

How many more people live with disease and suffering?

Wilbur wrote:"Lack of health insurance is associated with as many as 44,789 deaths per year in the United States"

How many more people live with disease and suffering?

Exactly.

Deaths are more dramatic (and devastating to families and the economy in themselves) but also there are those whose lives are impacted by health who don't die outright but suffer needlessly due to our 'profit first' system of deciding who is worthy of healthcare.

Come on, everyone knows that universal health care is unamerican.

Frankly, it's Stalinesque.

With any luck the American system will catch on and help keep population growth in check.

Because there hasn't been any change in US healthcare since the time those numbers reflect

The situation may have been ameliorated somewhat.

So the number of needless deaths and untreated health problems may be less than before.

That is a plus.

proudfootz wrote:The situation may have been ameliorated somewhat.

So the number of needless deaths and untreated health problems may be less than before.

That is a plus.

Well with average studies pegging it before ACA at around 26,000 due to no insurance and ACA supposedly giving 25% of people without insurance insurance I think we can guess it has gone down a significant bit.

Still more to go but significant gains made.

Acetone wrote:

proudfootz wrote:The situation may have been ameliorated somewhat.

So the number of needless deaths and untreated health problems may be less than before.

That is a plus.

Well with average studies pegging it before ACA at around 26,000 due to no insurance and ACA supposedly giving 25% of people without insurance insurance I think we can guess it has gone down a significant bit.

Still more to go but significant gains made.

Not just significant, but using the numbers provided earlier to justify saying Americans were "dying in droves" from no insurance, the reduction of uninsured as a result of Obamacare would move the US up significantly in such rankings.

Here are the figures provided earlier based on pre-ACA numbers:


A 25% decrease in uninsured leading to a corresponding 25% decrease in deaths due to lack of insurance would move the US from 96 (last) to 72 (right in the middle).

There's arguably been an even greater reduction of uninsured in the US and/or that the number should continue to drop as the system matures but even a modest reduction in US uninsured would have moved "dying in droves US" from the chart above up several places ahead of other countries such as the UK.

So, IOW, her figures are bullshit.

Sorry but how is America ahead of Britain? 83 as opposed to 96?

Scot Dutchy wrote:Sorry but how is America ahead of Britain? 83 as opposed to 96?

Reading what I posted would help.

purplerat wrote:

Acetone wrote:

proudfootz wrote:The situation may have been ameliorated somewhat.

So the number of needless deaths and untreated health problems may be less than before.

That is a plus.

Well with average studies pegging it before ACA at around 26,000 due to no insurance and ACA supposedly giving 25% of people without insurance insurance I think we can guess it has gone down a significant bit.

Still more to go but significant gains made.

Not just significant, but using the numbers provided earlier to justify saying Americans were "dying in droves" from no insurance, the reduction of uninsured as a result of Obamacare would move the US up significantly in such rankings.

Here are the figures provided earlier based on pre-ACA numbers:


A 25% decrease in uninsured leading to a corresponding 25% decrease in deaths due to lack of insurance would move the US from 96 (last) to 72 (right in the middle).

There's arguably been an even greater reduction of uninsured in the US and/or that the number should continue to drop as the system matures but even a modest reduction in US uninsured would have moved "dying in droves US" from the chart above up several places ahead of other countries such as the UK.

Well, it's to be seen if that 25% decrease in uninsured leads to a similar 25% decrease in deaths from lack of insurance. I don't know the dynamics of the system but it could be that those who are more often dying being uninsured could still be part of the 75% since we don't know the distribution.

It is significant though IMO. It's worth noting though that dying because you can't even access health care due to costs is different from dying because the health care couldn't treat you effectively or in time. IMO at least.