45,000 US Deaths Annually Linked to Lack of Health Insurance

“We’re losing more Americans every day because of inaction … than drunk driving and homicide combined,” Dr. David Himmelstein, a co-author of a Harvard health care study and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, said in an interview with Reuters.

“For any doctor … it’s completely a no-brainer that people who can’t get health care are going to die more from the kinds of things that health care is supposed to prevent,” said Doctor Woolhandler, a professor of medicine at Harvard and a primary care physician in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The serious nature of the failed health care system in America became a highly personal issue this week as my younger brother, only 64 years old, passed away in Portland, Oregon, where he lived for the past 30 years.

My brother made what in retrospect was a tragic mistake when he took early retirement about five years ago in November of 2004. As part of his retirement package he was to have received health care insurance coverage until age 65. That coverage was canceled in 2007 due to a corporate reorganization. He had recently applied for Medicare but that coverage would not start until he reached age 65. So my brother was without health care insurance when he needed it the most.

Over the past year or two the family knew that he was not feeling well and asked him to please see a doctor. Unfortunately, he kept putting it off as he was fearful of the possibility of needing a series of tests, perhaps even admission to a hospital, and incurring a huge amount of medical bills. Even though the family offered to help financially my brother didn’t want to pass what he knew could be a huge financial burden along.

While no one can be certain that putting off health care due to a lack of insurance was the primary reason for his premature death, probably if he had proper health care insurance coverage, he would have sought out and received the treatment that he needed and would still be with us.

It is a sad shame and disgrace that he has become one of the 45,000 annual US deaths linked to a lack of health care insurance. Surely the citizens of the US deserve as good of an affordable health care system as say the French or Singaporean citizen. Some might call it socialism but a universal single payer health care system works very well in many countries where the governments seem to be more concerned about the welfare of their citizens. In the USA the wishes of corporations seem to be more important to the government than the health of its citizens.

Sad and disgraceful are two words that sum up our present health care system. Many elements of the present public debate concerning health care and the actions of the US congress can be summed up with the same two words. Sad and disgraceful.