Brad DeLong: Multiple Sclerosis Patients without Health Insurance ...

A good deal of the rich-poor life expectancy discrepancy increase in America that has emerged in the past generation is due to lack of insurance?

Paul Krugman: Death by Ideology:

Last week, speaking to The Columbus Dispatch, Mr. Romney declared that nobody in America dies because he or she is uninsured: ?We don?t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don?t have insurance.? This followed on an earlier remark by Mr. Romney ? echoing an infamous statement by none other than George W. Bush ? in which he insisted that emergency rooms provide essential health care to the uninsured. These are remarkable statements. They clearly demonstrate that Mr. Romney has no idea what life (and death) are like?. Even the idea that everyone gets urgent care when needed from emergency rooms is false. Yes, hospitals are required by law to treat people in dire need, whether or not they can pay. But that care isn?t free?. Some people can?t or won?t pay, but fear of huge bills can deter the uninsured from visiting the emergency room even when they should. And sometimes they die as a result.

More important, going to the emergency room when you?re very sick is no substitute for regular care, especially if you have chronic health problems. When such problems are left untreated ? as they often are among uninsured Americans ? a trip to the emergency room can all too easily come too late?.

So the reality, to which Mr. Romney is somehow blind, is that many people in America really do die every year because they don?t have health insurance.

How many deaths are we talking about? That?s not an easy question to answer?. [S]tates that expand their Medicaid coverage, and hence provide health insurance to more people, consistently show a significant drop in mortality compared with neighboring states that don?t expand coverage. And surely the fact that the United States is the only major advanced nation without some form of universal health care is at least part of the reason life expectancy is much lower in America than in Canada or Western Europe?

Source: http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/10/multiple-sclerosis-patients-without-health-insurance-do-not-do-very-well.html

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