In September, a Harvard study said the lack of health insurance kills 45, 000 people every year.
If we looked at our health care “system” that way, would we be moved to do something about it? Hold telethons? Bake sales? Would we cry foul? Call for real reform?
Writes Dr. Deb Richter, a family physician for 20 years:
The Harvard Medical School researchers found that an uninsured person’s risk of death is 40 percent higher than his or her privately insured counterpart. Looked at another way, every 12 minutes a person dies unnecessarily because he or she doesn’t have health coverage.
As startling as this 45,000 figure is, I fear it underestimates the problem.
In my 20 years of practice as a family physician, I have encountered dozens of cases where the main contributing factor to a person’s death was the lack of health insurance for most of their lives.
I recall one family that lost three members this way.
Dating Jesus 
This is something I’ve pondered a bit as well. We launched a war because of 3000 people dying on 9/11, but 15 times that (or 6 according to another number) die at our own hands, so to speak, and it’s ho-hum. “Why didn’t they take personal responsibility for themselves?”
Boiled down like that, our choices seem pretty clear, right?
“As startling as this 45,000 figure is, I fear it underestimates the problem.”
I’ll buy murder. Murder in the first degree.
And we have called for real reform. But all we get is a bait and switch con.
From the beginning, the politicians involved have been more concerned with power and money than serving the needs of the people.
And that is where we stay on them and make sure they understand what we mean. Or is that me being a little too “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington?”
Nope.
That’s the idea.
This is the civil rights issue of our time.
The stakes are too high.
Democrats Ponder Health-Care Suicide
Thank you for linking to that. I saw that and wished I had linked to it.
I remember Parry from the Iran-Contra days. I wonder what he thinks about the Shield Law issue?
Nothing on his website yet.
I *have* health insurance and I’m ready to have a bake sale to pay for all my health stuff.
For real? Can you bake? No, I’m kidding. People who actually need their health insurance. Imagine.
“What Americans want is affordable health coverage provided in as simple a package as possible.”
I don’t want coverage. I want care. I don’t want health insurance. I want health care for everyone and anyone who needs it.
When did the conversation switch to health insurance reform, as opposed to health care? You’re right.
Mmmmm, probably about the time legislators were reminded of the contributions from those wealthy insurance CEOs.
I haven’t yet followed the link, but this was in my e-mail yesterday from Brave New Films:
“Netting $2.5 billion in profits last year wasn’t enough for WellPoint, the nation’s largest insurance company.
“Now, WellPoint’s affiliate, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, is suing the state of Maine for refusing to guarantee it a profit margin in the midst of a painful recession. ”
http://sickforprofit.com/?utm_source=rgemail#maine
Oh, good Lord. Are they serious?
It stuns me that ANYONE (or any institution) thinks they have a RIGHT to a profit.
Did I miss that in my reading of our Constitution? Because I think someone somewhere owes me some fat cash.