If you had woke up one morning back in 2006 and read the morning news with the following headline, would it get your attention?


What would you be thinking if the story was about terrorists causing these deaths and that somehow due to a lack of protection that should have been provided those 22,000 fellow Americans had died during the year?

According to the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States, "We the People" have clearly stated that the primary duty of our representatives in government, and the President of the United is as follows:

Preamble

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Without insuring "domestic tranquility" within and providing a "common defense" from threats to our security and without the promotion of "the general Welfare" of all citizens equally, a perfect union could not be formed nor fully established.

What if the above mentioned 22,000 deaths were due to a lack of the promotion of the ability for each and every American to have available for their peace and tranquility a health care system that would not bankrupt their personal economic security?

Read on . . .

Urban Institute > Publications

Uninsured and Dying Because of It

Updating the Institute of Medicine Analysis on the Impact of Uninsurance on Mortality

Stan Dorn

Publication Date: January 08, 2008

Other Availability:
PDF | Printer-friendly summary

Permanent Link:
http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=411588

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

The text below is an excerpt from the complete document. Read the full paper in PDF format.

---

Abstract

The absence of health insurance creates a range of consequences, including lower quality of life, increased morbidity and mortality, and higher financial burdens. This paper focuses on just one aspect of this harm--namely, greater risk of death--and seeks to illustrate its general order of magnitude.

In 2002, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) estimated that 18,000 Americans died in 2000 because they were uninsured. Since then, the number of uninsured has grown. Based on the IOM's methodology and subsequent Census Bureau estimates of insurance coverage, 137,000 people died from 2000 through 2006 because they lacked health insurance, including 22,000 people in 2006.

---

Introduction

As part of the IOM report, the authors sought to estimate the total number of deaths resulting from uninsurance. They began developing this estimate with two long-term, longitudinal studies observing the relationship between insurance status and death rates. One used 1971-87 data on 25- to 74-year-olds from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (Franks, Clancy, and Gold 1993). The other used Current Population Survey (CPS) data on 25- to 64-year-olds from 1982 to 1986 (Sorlie et al 1994). Although the two study populations differed, as did the potentially confounding characteristics for which the researchers controlled, both studies yielded estimates attributing to uninsurance an overall increase of 25 percent in mortality risk for working-age adults.

The IOM study combined this research result with information on the numbers of deaths and the percentages of people who are insured by 10-year age intervals. IOM researchers developed the following formula, which starts with the straightforward proposition that the number of total deaths in an age group is the sum of (a) deaths among insured members of that age group and (b) deaths among uninsured members of that age group.

Note that DU, or the number of deaths among the uninsured, is calculated through two steps. First, the IOM methodology ascertains the number of deaths among the uninsured as if everyone in the age cohort had insurance. That number is X (or the total number of deaths if everyone in the age cohort had insurance) times PU (or the proportion of people in the age cohort who lack insurance). Second, the number of deaths as if the uninsured had insurance is multiplied by 1.25. This yields an estimate of the actual number of deaths among the uninsured, reflecting the 25 percent higher mortality rate among the uninsured found by the above-described research.

(End of excerpt. The entire paper is available in PDF format.)

---

Related Research

• Targeting Subsidies: Employers versus Individuals
• Who Gained the Most Under Health Reform in Massachusetts?
• Impact of Health Reform on Underinsurance in Massachusetts

Related Topics

• Health/Healthcare

Other Publications by the Authors

• Stan Dorn

---

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

Usage, posting and reprint of materials on the UI web site:

Most publications may be downloaded free of charge from the web site in PDF format. This information may be used and copies made for research, academic, policy or other non-commercial purposes. Proper attribution is required.

Copyright of the written materials contained within the Urban Institute website is owned or controlled by the Urban Institute. Posting UI research papers on other websites is permitted subject to prior approval from the Urban Institute--contact [email protected].

If you are unable to access or print the PDF document please contact us

~OGD~