When We Can’t Afford to Be Sick: Access to Healthcare Drops Along with Economy

[marmar]

from In These Times:




When We Can’t Afford to Be Sick: Access to Healthcare Drops Along with Economy

Wednesday
August 18
4:38 pm

By Stephen Franklin


Slowly but surely the evidence is pilling up to show what the Great Recession has done to our health. As jobs disappeared, paychecks shrunk and healthcare coverage shriveled, the poorest among us increasingly turned to the only places where they shouldn’t be turned away – the nation’s emergency rooms.

The surprise is how much their numbers grew. Between 1997 and 2007, the nation’s hospitals witnessed a 23 percent increase in emergency room visits, according to a study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

This increase was double what normally should have taken place, the researchers said. This, however, wasn’t an equal equality rush on the nation’s emergency rooms. It was largely those on Medicaid who made up the increase.

But these are figures from before the economy took its great drive. What has happened since then?

Some of us stopped getting medical care. Some of us stopped going to hospitals. And, most likely, some of us got so sick without medical care that our problems were far worse when we finally find our way to a hospital. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6348/when_we_cant_afford_to_be_sick/

[eridani]

1. Europeans don't have that problem.

National Bureau of Economic Research
Working Paper 15843
March, 2010
The economic crisis and medical care usage
By Annamaria Lusardi, Daniel J. Schneider, Peter Tufano

We use a unique, nationally representative cross-national dataset to document the reduction in individuals? usage of routine non-emergency medical care in the midst of the economic crisis. A substantially larger fraction of Americans have reduced medical care than have individuals in
Great Britain, Canada, France, and Germany, all countries with universal health care systems. At the national level, reductions in medical care are related to the degree to which individuals must pay for it, and within countries are strongly associated with exogenous shocks to wealth and
employment.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w15843


Comment by Don McCanne or PNHP: This five-nation study of the impact of the financial crisis on usage of routine medical care demonstrates that both a decline in employment and a decline in wealth are strongly associated with reductions in medical care. But once again, the United States is an outlier.

U.S. citizens pay the highest out-of-pocket amounts for health care, and therefore were two to five times more likely than Europeans to reduce their use of health care. In difficult economic times, higher cost sharing has a greater negative impact on health care access.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) will intensify this problem because most of the subsidized private plans will have low actuarial values, requiring larger deductibles, higher coinsurance (percentage of costs paid by the patient), and higher copayments (dollar amount paid by the patient).

The health care financing system should be designed to allow individuals to have the health care that they need without exposing them to financial hardship, and that protection certainly should extend into times of economic crises.

Now that PPACA has established underinsurance as the norm, we can anticipate greater reductions in necessary care, especially during difficult economic times. Or instead we could ensure that people receive the care that they need by replacing our financing system with a single payer national health program. As voters, it's our choice.

[SammyWinstonJack]

2. Funny how that works, eh?

:evilgrin:

[Manifestor_of_Light]

3. Obama blocked cheap drugs in the US thanks to his lobbyist buddies.

Then they can't understand why people order drugs from India (at 50c a pill) and other cheap places -- and they don't have enough customs agents to stop it.

To hell with em.

[another saigon]

4. oh Canada....

I wish I was born 200 miles across the border. I might have had a chance to live longer.

[marmar]

5. 200? Try 1 mile.....I can look across the river from my office window into Canada.

nt

[another saigon]

6. that is depressing.

I took my son to a specialist today and had to explain why it cost us so much money. I told him if we lived in Canada we would not be in this mess. The US sucks and views the health of humans as a commodity. He gets it now.

:(