Washington, D.C. — One person dies each day in Washington because he or she doesn't have health insurance, says a new report by Families USA, the national organization for health care consumers.
The Families USA report, the first-ever state-specific report of this type, is based on a groundbreaking national study by the Institute of Medicine, which in 2002 forged the direct link between a lack of health coverage and deaths from health-related causes.
“Our report highlights how our inadequate system of health coverage condemns a great number of Washingtonians to an early death simply because they don’t have the same access to health care as their insured neighbors,” Ron Pollack, Executive Director of Families USA, said today. “The conclusions are sadly clear—a lack of health coverage is a matter of life and death for many Washingtonians.
“Health insurance really matters in how people make their health care decisions,” Pollack said. “We know that people without insurance often forgo checkups, screenings, and other preventive care.”
As a result, he said, uninsured adults are more likely to be diagnosed with a disease, such as cancer, in an advanced stage, which greatly reduces their chance of survival. The Institute of Medicine found that uninsured adults are 25 percent more likely to die prematurely than adults with private health insurance.
Another recent academic study found that uninsured adults between the ages of 55 and 64 are even more likely to die prematurely. For this group, a lack of health insurance is the third leading cause of death, following heart disease and cancer.
The Families USA report for Washington makes three specific points about uninsured adults:
* Families USA estimates that one working-age Washingtonian dies each day due to lack of health insurance (approximately 380 people in 2006).
* Between 2000 and 2006, the estimated number of adults between the ages of 25 and 64 in Washington who died because they did not have health insurance was nearly 2,700.
* Across the United States, in 2006, twice as many people in that same age category died from a lack of health insurance as died from homicide.
“It's tragic that far too many Washingtonians die before their time because they don't have access to affordable and quality health care,” U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) said today. “As the number of the nation's uninsured and underinsured continues to increase, there is so much more that can be done to stem the tide, and the time to act is now. All Americans deserve access to quality, affordable health care.”
“This report confirms in stark terms that America's health care crisis is a matter of life and death for the American people,” U.S. Representative Jim McDermott (D-WA) said today. “As long as Washington, D.C. continues to ignore the urgent need to implement universal health care, more Americans will be deprived of the medical care they deserve, and more innocent lives will be lost for no reason other than intransigence, which is no reason at all.”
In its 2002 report, the Institute of Medicine estimated that 18,000 adults nationwide died in 2000 because they did not have health insurance. That estimate was later updated by the Urban Institute, which reported that at least 22,000 adults died in 2006 due to a lack of health insurance.
