The republican push to end the Affordable Care Act is truly appalling. Medical insurance matters. Mortality rate increases for those without health insurance. This is science. Wilper and his team, publishing in the American Journal of Public Health (2009) www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/…, one study among many, reported a higher mortality rate among the uninsured. They also summarized a report from the Institute of Medicine that directly attributed 18,314 deaths in 2001 to lack of health insurance. In that year the US population was 285 million with 40 million uninsured. So, this calculates out to a mortality rate of 46 per 100,000 population owing to lack of health insurance, or 3.3 deaths per month per 100,000 for the uninsured population.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the number of uninsured will rise by 24 million by 2026, 10 years. Ten years is 120 months. If one wishes to estimate the mortality arising from this intervention, then the easiest means to an estimate is to assume 200,000 additional uninsured per month for 120 months. So, in month 1, 3.8 additional deaths per 100,000 or 7.7 deaths projected, total. Then in month 2, 400,000 uninsured means 15.4 additional deaths with the cumulative death toll at 7.7 plus 15.4 or 23.1 deaths at the end of month 2. Continue this process for 120 months and it yields a final total of 55,902 additional deaths attributable to loss of health insurance across the 10 years.
This proposed carnage is entirely preventable. And entirely without justification. And heartless. And, probably not very smart politics.
Thanks to artist James Pollack and his painting ‘Waiting for Liftoff’, and the National Museum of the U.S. Army.