Healthcare Financial News

In 2002, a study by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences demonstrated the direct link between a lack of health coverage and deaths from health-related causes. Drawing on that study, Families USA, a national organization for healthcare consumers, on April 8 made available reports for all 50 states that show how many people are expected to die in each state each week because they don’t have health coverage. A separate report is also available for the District of Columbia.

Among the figures cited is the fact that more than seven working-age Texans die each day due to a lack of health insurance. Other reports reveal that, on average, approximately 960 people in Illinios died in 2006 because they had no health coverage, and nearly 9,900 uninsured New Yorkers between the ages of 25 and 64 died in the years 2000 to 2006.

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.

“The conclusions are sadly clear,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, “that a lack of health coverage is a matter of life and death for many people.” Access the state reports.

The rise in emergency department (ED) visits between 1996 and 2003 cannot be primarily attributed to the uninsured, according to a study report published in the April issue of Annals of Emergency Medicine. Instead, major contributors to increasing ED utilization appeared to be a rise in use by nonpoor patients and by patients whose usual source of care is a physician’s office.

Those were among the surprising findings of a study by University of California, San Francisco, researchers who examined national Community Tracking Study Household Surveys. Their analysis revealed that, while the proportion of adult ED visits by the uninsured was stable across that period of time, the proportion of visits by patients whose family income was greater than 400 percent of the federal poverty level increased from 21.9 percent to 29.0 percent. Also, the proportion of ED visits by those whose usual source of care was a physician’s office increased from 52.4 percent in 1996-97 to 59.0 percent in 2003-04.

“Together, these findings suggest that the rise in ED use is disproportionately due to nonpoor individuals who have a usual source of health care,” write the researchers. “These findings have significant implications for current policy discussions because they suggest that the provision of health insurance will not, in and of itself, address issues of ED crowding or the more general issues of access to, and appropriateness of, healthcare services.” Read the article.