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One-Third of Uninsured Are Chronically Ill

A new study is out on the uninsured with the shocking result that 1/3 of the uninsured are chronically ill.   This is a health care disaster:

“These people are going to end up with complications of their illnesses prematurely. They will be disabled early. They will probably die younger. It is a major public health disaster,” said Dr. Oliver Fein, president-elect of Physicians for a National Health Program and professor of clinical medicine and public health at Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University in New York City. “Longer-term, there will be expensive admissions to hospitals, usually through the emergency department, due to diabetes out of control and congestive heart failure because of hypertension.”

I doubt if the actual number of people who died due to lack of health care will ever be known, but this period of denying health care to the population will eventually be viewed as hideous and despicable.  Meanwhile, politicans like McCain (and most other Republicans) believe they should be entitled to great health care while denying it to millions of others.

This was written by Dad. Posted on Thursday, August 7, 2008, at 2:39 am. Filed under Update. Bookmark the permalink. Follow comments here with the RSS feed. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

One Comment

  1. Mike wrote:

    I just came across your website, and I would like to express my sympathy for all that you are going through.

    I have Wegener’s Granulomatosis, which is a form of vasculitis. I was a graduate student when I got sick, and I was only making $16,000 per year. I was hospitalized more than a year ago, and I’m still about $10,000 in debt, and that is after paying almost half of my monthly income on prescriptions after the 1,300 prescription budget from health insurance ran out.

    I think my situation is actually pretty good compared to a lot of people. I met someone in a support group, and the only treatment that her condition has responded to was Remicade, but since it costs around $15,000 per treatment and is not approved to treat her condition, the insurance company refused to pay. Now not only can she not get a medically necessary treatment, but she is being sued by the hospital for about $50,000 for the few treatments she was able to get before the insurance cut her off.

    It really seems like bankruptcy is the only option for people who get sick these days.

    Thursday, November 6, 2008 at 1:13 pm | Permalink