Death by Insurance

[RedEarth]

Death by Insurance
Paul Krugman
May 1, 2006. The New York Times

For lower-income working Americans, lack of health insurance is quickly becoming the new normal. That's the implication of survey results just released by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonpartisan organization that studies health care. The survey found that 41 percent of nonelderly American adults with incomes between $20,000 and $40,000 a year were without health insurance for all or part of 2005. That's up from 28 percent as recently as 2001.

Many of the uninsured reported spending their entire savings on health care and/or that they were having difficulty paying for basic necessities. And most uninsured adults reported cutting corners on medical care to save money — failing to fill prescriptions, skipping medications, going without preventive care.

Here's the other side of the same coin: health insurers' business is lagging, reports The Wall Street Journal, as "rising premiums and medical costs push more of their traditional-employer customers to shun or curtail company health benefits." And some investors are feeling the pain. Aetna's stock price fell sharply last week, on news that its "medical cost ratio" — a term I'll explain in a minute — rose from 77.9 to 79.4.

Taken together, these stories tell the tale of a health care system that's driving a growing number of Americans into financial ruin, and in many cases kills them through lack of basic care. (The Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, estimates that lack of health insurance leads to 18,000 unnecessary American deaths — the equivalent of six 9/11's — each year.) Yet this system actually costs more to run than we would spend if we guaranteed health insurance to everyone.

http://www.healthcareforall.org/chronicle.html

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. Excellent. I've been saying this for at least 2 years

just expand Medicare. It's already there. Those people who don't believe it's 'good enough' can go out and buy their own extra coverage.

[varkam]

2. Recommended n/t

[BrklynLiberal]

3. Excellent article. Krugman hits the points, as usual.

This all seems to obvious...WHY THE HELL AREN'T WE DOING IT!!??