45,000 American deaths associated with lack of insurance (click here)
Fri September 18, 2009
By Madison Park, CNN
(CNN) -- A freelance cameraman's appendix ruptured and by the time he was admitted to surgery, it was too late. A self-employed mother of two is found dead in bed from undiagnosed heart disease. A 26-year-old aspiring fashion designer collapsed in her bathroom after feeling unusually fatigued for days.
What all three of these people have in common is that they experienced symptoms, but didn't seek care because they were uninsured and they worried about the hospital expense, according to their families. All three died.
Research released this week in the American Journal of Public Health estimates that 45,000 deaths per year in the United States are associated with the lack of health insurance. If a person is uninsured, "it means you're at mortal risk," said one of the authors, Dr. David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School....
Loss of Americans when it could have been prevented due to the financial status of an industry is not and CANNOT be acceptable. These people were important for many reasons, but, if any of the them had children their deaths will profoundly effect the outcome of those children.What are we doing to our country if children are losing parents? And what if that was a single parent family? What do those children do then?
As a nation we have a strong interest in insuring our people taken care of and adding to the quality of life of all Americans. We can honorably say we are doing the best we can for everyone. Heath care cannot completely be based in capitalism. It is not possible. The jobs market has become far too turbulent to think at some point in time in any career a person runs a risk of lacking health care and what if that happens at the very time when they need it most?
The argument by the GOP is often a person can go to an emergency room for care. That is not completely accurate. If one has lump in their breast that is not an emergency room visit. The ERs in the country will not accept the fact a lump is an emergency and will tell anyone with that complaint to seek a physician to evaluate it. The only time cancer patients without insurance are admitted to a hospital is when they are end stage and dying; whether the person realizes it or not.
By Max Blau
Published: June 26 at 3:24 pm
...But, things turned in June 2012 after the Supreme Court (click here) left it up to states to determine whether they wanted to expand Medicaid. Some conservative state leaders, including Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, quickly and staunchly rejected what they viewed as another growing entitlement program.
Under the Medicaid expansion, Georgia would have received about $33 billion from the federal government over the course of a decade, while paying nothing during the first three years. After that, the state would only pay 10 percent of the expansion’s overall bill. Deal says the move would ultimately cost Georgia from $2.5 billion to $4.5 billion — a small fraction of the total money, but more than he says the state can afford.
If Georgia expanded Medicaid, Grady chief executive John Haupert says it would cover more than 27,000 uninsured patients now seeking free medical treatment at the hospital. It also would have helped the hospital with an estimated $60 million economic boon....
$33 billion over ten years. Tell me that would not have turned the corner on the practice of medicine in Georgia. That level of investment in hospitals would begin the process to reduce health care costs in the USA. Because that is where the real victory lies. It is the high health care costs driving high premium costs. So, while many states realized their hospitals were over burdened with the care of the uninsured and underinsured, there are still that many more hospitals such as this in Georgia still placing a burden on the cost of health care.
I firmly believe The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is vitally needed. I also believe Americans have learned to cope ineffectively for 19 years that the transition is very difficult. Not only that, but, we have a shrinking Middle Class that is underpaid and without unions to provide for their needs to a healthy work force. A healthy work force is vital to provide the needed Middle Class which supports a vibrant economy.
The wealthy are not the economy. It is the largest numbers of a population that provides the economy. Now, if that is a wealth class that is the largest number, then so be it. But, today, the Middle Class is suppose to be the largest numbers to provide a growing economy. Why? Not that poverty sucks, but, because poverty is nothing more than subsistence. It is not a growing economy. Poverty is putting a huge drag on the USA economy and consequently because of the impact of the USA economy on the world, the global economy is lethargic.
It could be argued that the economy under Clinton was on it's way to a far larger Wealth Class in the USA, but, that came to an end under Bush. That wealth class contributed to the treasury and to the economy and the poverty was far less than today.
$33 billion over ten years. Tell me that would not have turned the corner on the practice of medicine in Georgia. That level of investment in hospitals would begin the process to reduce health care costs in the USA. Because that is where the real victory lies. It is the high health care costs driving high premium costs. So, while many states realized their hospitals were over burdened with the care of the uninsured and underinsured, there are still that many more hospitals such as this in Georgia still placing a burden on the cost of health care.
I firmly believe The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is vitally needed. I also believe Americans have learned to cope ineffectively for 19 years that the transition is very difficult. Not only that, but, we have a shrinking Middle Class that is underpaid and without unions to provide for their needs to a healthy work force. A healthy work force is vital to provide the needed Middle Class which supports a vibrant economy.
The wealthy are not the economy. It is the largest numbers of a population that provides the economy. Now, if that is a wealth class that is the largest number, then so be it. But, today, the Middle Class is suppose to be the largest numbers to provide a growing economy. Why? Not that poverty sucks, but, because poverty is nothing more than subsistence. It is not a growing economy. Poverty is putting a huge drag on the USA economy and consequently because of the impact of the USA economy on the world, the global economy is lethargic.
It could be argued that the economy under Clinton was on it's way to a far larger Wealth Class in the USA, but, that came to an end under Bush. That wealth class contributed to the treasury and to the economy and the poverty was far less than today.
