New study in Annals of Internal Medicine: "Being uninsured can raise death rates by 3-29 percent"
Democracy Now
June 27, 2017
A stunning new study in the "Annals of Internal Medicine" is estimating some 26,000 people could die early deaths if they lose health insurance.
We're joined now by the author of the study, Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, professor at
CCNY-Hunter College, primary care physician, lecturer at Harvard Medical School and
co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program.
AMY GOODMAN
Welcome to Democracy Now
DR. STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER
My pleasure
GOODMAN
Tell us what you found.
DR WOOLHANDLER
We reviewed the world's scientific literature on the relationship between health insurance and mortality....And there is really now a scientific consensus that being uninsured raises the death rates....It raises your death rates by between 3 and 29 percent....And the math on that is that if you take health insurance away from 22 million people, about 29,000 of them will die every year, annually, as a result....There was a similar review in the New England Journal of Medicine.
We published our own study in the Annals of Internal Medicine, which is the official organ of the American College of Physicians, the nation's largest medical specialty society.
So, being uninsured raises your death rate.
That is established scientific consensus.
And many of the Republicans have been trying to say:
"Oh, you can take away health insurance from 22 million people, and nothing will happen."
That's simply contradicted by the scientific consensus.
(From later on in the interview)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP
"I want to see - and I speak from the heart - that's what I want to see..I want to see a bill with heart."
AMY GOODMAN
Your response?
DR STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER
Well, Trumpcare has no heart whatsoever.
The House bill was going to throw 23 million people off insurance.
The Senate bill is going to throw 22 million off in ten years but then keep throwing more off.
You know, they're going to make health insurance worse for people with private coverage by getting rid of the rules about what has to be covered, so your private insurance will no longer have to cover maternity care.
They're actually robbing money from the Medicare Trust Fund.
They're taking $117 billion out of the Medicare Trust Fund, which pays for the health insurance when people turn 65.
$117 billion is taken out of that trust fund to give tax cuts to the top 1 percent of taxpayers.
That's not heart.
That's the opposite of heart.
Read transcript of entire interview//Watch full show:
http://www.democracynow.org/2017/6/27/senate_gop_healthcare_bill_estimated_to
