Here is one estimate of how many people die prematurely because they do not have health insurance (26,000). http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/2 ... insurance/

Here is another (45,000): http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/ ... hs-a-year/

Here is an a study comparing death rates (lower) for those states who had medicaid expansion versus those that did not: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/healt ... wanted=all

Some of the reasons for the higher death rates (from the article citing 26,000 more deaths):


But Families USA says the current delivery system is stacked against those without insurance. They pay more for care because they can't negotiate discounted prices on doctor and hospital charges like insurance companies can. As a result they often don't get preventative care and forgo or delay screenings and necessary medical care.

The report further states that in the past 2 years, uninsured women older than 50 were half as likely as insured women to get mammograms. Low-income uninsured adults were 5 times less likely to get screened for colon cancer in the past 5 years compared to insured adults. Cancer patients without insurance are five times more likely to delay or even skip treatment because of the cost.

In addition, uninsured adults are more often diagnosed with advanced stage disease and they are 25% more likely to die prematurely than those with private insurance.

"The Affordable Care Act lets us wake up from this terrible health care nightmare of premature death," Pollack said. "Wiping out health reform means the nightmare will continue for all Americans."


So the question is it moral for our society, given its relative wealth, to allow uncovered people to die at higher rates because they cannot afford to pay for care?

Charity

Freeman:

So the question is it moral for our society, given its relative wealth, to allow uncovered people to die at higher rates because they cannot afford to pay for care?

I think it depends. There is a standard of care for which society should be responsible. However, we cannot afford to pay for whatever treament is available under any circumstances, particularly as our technology improves and there is so much expensive treatment that will impact the death rate, although sometimes marginally.

ray

However, we cannot afford to pay for whatever treament is available under any circumstances, particularly as our technology improves and there is so much expensive treatment that will impact the death rate, although sometimes marginally.

You don't consider this as a serious barrier to universal coverage do you?
In every western national with national health care covering everyone, this is an issue that has to be dealt with daily. On a case by case basis, the very expensive treatments have to be approved for payment within the system. When treatments are experimental, and the patient is enrolled in a test program, they tend to get covered. After that, it often depends on how well they have performed in the experimental trials. If the treatments are proven effective, they are often not covered...
The tough ones are the very expensive drugs that work moderately well, for rare diseases. The prices are rarely going to come down, because there are few patients so production is almost at an artisan level...
But overall, the price of health care can be brought down with universality, and centralization of price negotiation. And when these prices come down, the general economy benefits.

I read the below comment on a news web site (comments section) today. Its quoted in ful. Has this happened for any of you?

The Affordable Care Act has not been fully implemented; however for the first time in last 15-20 years, my insurance premium -- same company, same policy -- went down instead of up. I also received notice that there are no co-pays for certain routine visits. People should give this historical legislation a chance to work for all Americans. It seems logical that having access to healthcare early on could prevent costly diseases and treatments in the long term, that would affect Medicare expenditures

Sure would be a reason why the ACA poll numbers are improving. Most people being heavily influenced by saving money.

Link?

It's only an anecdote anyway. But it would be interesting to see what is actually happening to insurance rates, given that both sides of the debate had strong views about what would happen.

Are there sources which could give us statistics?

Mine went up by 4%. I understand that 2% (i.e. 1/2) of that increase is the result of the mandate to include those who are under 26 and living at home even though I don't have that situation.

Ok. What did it go up by in previous years, RJ? Is that real-terms of 4% or with inflation accounted for?

bbauska the quote was from a comment on a news site, it didn't have anything else relevant. I was just wondering. It came about because I watched Clinton speech. Intending just to watch a few minutes and staying with him. One thing is, he sold the ACA in a way I'd never heard before,...
Now if most of his claims are right, as people start to get those benefits ...andf I was wondering if anyone had benefitted.
Heres a few bits and pieces

Under the new health care law, insurance companies must provide consumers greater value by spending generally at least 80 percent of premium dollars on health care and quality improvements instead of overhead, executive salaries or marketing. If they don’t, they must provide consumers a rebate or reduce premiums. This means that 143,327 Ohio residents with private insurance coverage will benefit from $11,331,726 in rebates from insurance companies this summer. These rebates will average $139 for the 81,500 families in Ohio covered by a policy

http://www.healthcare.gov/law/resources/oh.html

The Affordable Care Act makes $250 million available to States to take action against insurers seeking unreasonable rate hikes. To date, 43 States and the District of Columbia are using $44 million in grants provided by HHS to help them improve their oversight of proposed health insurance rate increases.Â

State rate review activities are paying off for consumers:
■Rhode Island’s Insurance Commissioner used his rate review authority to reduce a proposed increase by a major insurer in that State from 7.9 percent to 1.9 percent.
■Californians were saved from rate increases totaling as high as 87 percent after a California insurer withdrew its proposed increase after scrutiny by the State Insurance Commissioner.
■Nearly 30,000 North Dakotans saw a proposed increase of 23.7 percent cut to 14 percent following a public outcry.
■Connecticut’s Insurance Department rejected a proposed 20 percent rate hike by one of the State’s major insurers

http://cciio.cms.gov/resources/factshee ... sheet.html

If the benefits actually start to kick in, and people are getting refunds or lower premium increases, ACA - sold the way Clinton did - will prove to be a positive in Obama's campaign.

danivon wrote:Ok. What did it go up by in previous years, RJ? Is that real-terms of 4% or with inflation accounted for?

The 2 prior years were each a bit over10% as I remember, so this year's increase was much lower. I did not adjust by inflation; I just compared the invoices.

There are many factors here so I wouldn't attribute it to ACA one way or the other. The prior 2 years had either my wife or me turning 50 which adjusts the rates upwards since they bill based on your decade and the rates increase substantially as you get older. Also, state rules have a big impact here since Mass already has mandatory insurance.

There may be some ways in which ACA is reducing costs, and others in which it is increasing costs, but it is hard to presume that individual cases are solely the result of ACA. Also, insurance cost is a subset of total medical cost. Insurance plans change in terms of deductibles and co-pays. There are a few items for which we are no longer charged including annual physicals. and dare I say, birth control pills.

Yeah, just as ricky's comment was anecdotal, your renewal is also. It is hard to pick out much from it, and the impact of co-pays being reduced/removed would only be felt when you need to claim - so hopefully not too much for you & yours RJ.

Inflation is falling - it was 1.4% for the year to July 2012, but about 3% for the year to January 2012.

inflation is falling!!! lol

http://healthreform.kff.org/SubsidyCalculator.aspx

ACA really isn't universal healthcare, it's just another concocted monstrosity. For kicks and giggles plug in 40k income for a family of 4.

Sure they're going to go out a purchase a $1000/mo health insurance plan and sit on their hands all year till Uncle Sam gets around to giving them a tax credit.

People need healthcare not insurance schemes.

Maybe one of the reasons drugs/medicines are so expensive, at least here in the US, is precisely that they are not as expensive in other countries; but instead, are price-controlled through various mandates as part of a country's national health care system. Drug research is time consuming and very expensive. Companies have to recoup costs to have enough left over for R&D for ever-new drugs. The US does not have mandates and price controls; hence, the higher prices in the US. Thus, we help subsidize cheaper medicine for those other countries.

Now, if and when the US goes on to a national health service of some sort, what then? Would that level the playing field and cause the price of medicines to go up unilaterally around the world to make up for the loss of revenue in the US? Or would price controls slow down research because of decreasing income? Is it worth the trouble to spend 10 to 20 years developing a drug, but not make enough profit to pay employees, investors, & governments, and still have enough for R&D? I suppose we could nationalize drug companies and take the economic factor out of the equation. Professionals would then enjoy the privilege of working for the joy of working, and for helping humanity. Just a thought.