Families USA Study Shows How Many Die Because They Lack Health Insurance

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/8192

A first-ever report breaks down the death rate of the uninsured state-by-state, and finds that the uninsured are more likely to die sooner than the insured. Jesse Russell reports:

Families USA has finished the first-ever study breaking down the by state how many die every year due to a lack of health insurance. So far the organization has completed studies in 13 of the 50 states and on Tuesday held a conference call regarding the results in Wisconsin. According to Families USA 10.7 percent of those between the ages of 25 and 64 living in Wisconsin are uninsured and they estimate that approximately 250 Wisconsinites died in 2006 due to being uninsured. Dr. Barbara Horner-Ibler, medical director at the Bread of Healing Clinic in Milwaukee said that it isn’t just a problem of the uninsured, but also of insurance holders with deductibles that are too high:

: “We also have the issue now of not just the uninsured, but patients who have high deductible plans who are delaying care because they do not have access and the access that they do have is much too expensive for them to afford on their budget.”

According to the study, which covered 30 years of statistics, uninsured adults are more than three times as likely to delay seeking medical care and are 25 percent more likely to die prematurely than adults with health insurance.