Death by Uninsurance
Nearly 45,000 deaths a year in the United States - and 1,334 here in Pennsylvania - are associated with the lack of health insurance. That's the finding reported September 17 by Physicians for a National Health Program and published in the American Journal of Public Health.
The study was conducted by Dr. Andrew Wilper, who now teaches at the University of Washington Medical School. Co-authors were Dr. David Himmelstein and Dr. Steffie Woolhandler.
It was reported September 17 by CNNHealth.com. The CNN report includes accounts of individuals who died due to delayed or absent medical care related to a lack of health insurance.
The Institute of Medicine conducted a similar study in 2002 and estimated that lack of health insurance was associated with 18,000 deaths annually.
The more recent study suggests that four Pennsylvanians die each day because they lack access to medical care due to their uninsured status. It is one of many reasons why prompt action by Congress to enact national health reform is so urgently needed.
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Suicide due to lack of health insurance
My brother a small business owner, a husband and a father of two took his own life 2 years ago. His business was failing and he could no longer afford to pay for the families medical insurance, he had a very serious skin cancer that was removed, costing thousands of dollors, but he couldn't afford to pay for the followup chemo therapy treatments that wewre prescribed, so after a couple of years the cancer had spread, all though his body including his brain according to the autospy report. He wouldn't get out of bed for 3 months and was self medicating to cope with the painful headaches and sickness. His family begged him to go to the Dr, but he wouldn't. He didn't want to rack up more bills that the family couldn't pay. One day the headaches were so bad that he went to the emergency room to try and get some help, but they left him waiting there for 24hrs. He finally gave up. He left the ER and sometime later that day took his life. There are probably many stories like this that will not make it into the statistics....
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