BOSTON, Md., Sep 18, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- Nearly 45,000 people each year --
or one nearly every 12 minutes -- die for lack of health insurance in the United
States, researchers estimate.
Study lead author Dr. Andrew Wilper, who worked at Harvard Medical School when
the study was done and who now teaches at the University of Washington Medical
School, and colleagues analyzed data from national surveys carried out by the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Previous estimates from the Institute of Medicine and others had put that figure
near 18,000. The methods used in the current study were similar to those
employed by the Institute of Medicine in 2002, which in turn were based on a
pioneering 1993 study of health insurance and mortality.
"The uninsured have a higher risk of death when compared to the privately
insured, even after taking into account socioeconomics, health behaviors and
baseline health," Wilper said in a statement.
"We doctors have many new ways to prevent deaths from hypertension, diabetes and
heart disease -- but only if patients can get into our offices and afford their
medications."
The findings, published in the online edition of the American Journal of Public
Health, found uninsured, working U.S. adults have a 40 percent higher risk of
death than their privately insured counterparts.
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Copyright 2009 by United Press International