Let’s talk numbers. Even the most policy-averse can understand basic numbers.
From 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 can not 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 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.
A 1993 study found that those without health insurance are 25% more likely to die. That study put the number of annual deaths at 18,00 a year. The new study used the same methodology. It excludes people over the age of 65, because they have health insurance. It’s called Medicare. A government run health plan. The increased number of deaths is due largely to the increased number of uninsured. 27,000 more, each year. Since 1993. Since the Clinton Administration’s attempt to reform health care was destroyed, largely by the insurance industry.