Every day the Republicans and the Democratic moderates in the United States Senate delay the passage of healthcare reform legislation, 123 more Americans lose their lives to uninsurance. The inability of hard-working Americans to afford health insurance, or adequate health insurance, or to prevent insurers that have taken their money for years from refusing treatment or dropping them outright, is a moral failure of our system.
Earlier this year, a Harvard University study published the findings that 45,000 people die per year as a direct result of lacking adequate health insurance coverage. As many as 5 million additional people are estimated to have lost their health insurance this year alone, a nearly 10% increase in the numbers of the uninsured. That means the figure for 2009 could be substantially higher than 45,000.
But working from the 45,000 figure, we can estimate that 123 people are dying per day, as a direct result of lacking adequate insurance coverage. For nearly all of 2009, the Republican party, joined by "conservative Democrats", has been operating on the openly expressed opinion that it's fair and responsible to start any debate on healthcare reform with the phrase "what's the rush?" (They're now going as far as to say they will "do anything in their power to stop this bill from becoming law", urging supporters to rally under the slogan "kill the bill".)
The "rush", or rather, the reason for proceeding with all possible deliberate haste, is a moral imperative that elected officials sworn to serve the public interest cannot shirk their responsibility to help prevent the massive loss of life that is a direct and measurable result of a failed and corrupt system, designed to serve profit motives before serving the "consumer interest" of patients facing life and death choices regarding treatment.
While morally and economically-challenged members of the United States Senate "dither" over whether or not they want to do anything at all that will lower prices, ban the dropping of sick patients from insurance, and save lives, 123 people are dying every day due to their lack of action. The United States Senate has the power to act to prevent this massive and unnecessary loss of life, but are quite literally and quite deliberately refusing to do so.
How can they justify this, when there are no substantive proposals being put forward by any of the obstructionists that would actually help to lower costs, expand competition or eliminate the unnecessary and unconscionable loss of innocent life to the failings of a flawed insurance system? Time is of the essence; the United States Senate needs to accept the responsibility that comes with their office and with facing "the fierce urgency of now". Human lives should matter.
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Wilson Diehl
Steve Valk
Judy Mandelbaum
Dr. Evan Levine
Natalie Not Pedantic
Wordsmith
Salon.com
Comments
But, of course, nobody gives a rat's ass about that statistic, so long as everyone can get their insurance cheaper
There is ABSOLUTELY NO connection between BigPharma producing dangerous, poisonous drugs as medication, or doctors prescribing those medications when they have no other alternative, and the insurance who does nothing but PAY FOR those drugs.
This whole "health care" reform has nothing to do with health care. This "health care" reform is "economic recovery through insurance reform" and will do nothing to save lives or reduce suffering, it will only make it cheaper TO suffer and die.
That is not Health Care, that is the economy. Health Care should be coming out of HHS, not the budget committees
The only quality controls that insurance has is to turn health care into a binary system. They can either approve or deny a claim. O or 1. Even if every claim was approved, and every American citizen was covered, that would do nothing to improve the quality control of the FDA who approves the drugs coming out of BigPharma, after they have co-opted the research from NIH/NCI. It is the FDA who are responsible for approving the drugs we recieve, many of which are later taken off the market, only after they pass a certain pre-determined mortality rate for a given drug
P Studman, You have a good point, altho a little hostilely put. There is little in the bill to fix the waste--I suppose because it is lining someone's pockets...
Insurance companies would have to really compete for business. Hospitals and medical professionals would have to readjust their prices to fit what the market can pay. If people had to pay 70 or 125 dollars out of pocket for 3 to 5 minutes of the doctors time, they may start wondering if maybe they are getting ripped off. If they had to pay a 2,000 ER bill just to look at a sprained ankle they may start to question hospital charges.
Or the other options is take away coverage for congress and the senate and by law only allow them to have the same coverage the average American has. A few weeks in the healthcare system the rest of Americans deal with will cause both democrats and republicans to push through real reform.
Insurance companies would have to really compete for business. Hospitals and medical professionals would have to readjust their prices to fit what the market can pay. If people had to pay 70 or 125 dollars out of pocket for 3 to 5 minutes of the doctors time, they may start wondering if maybe they are getting ripped off. If they had to pay a 2,000 ER bill just to look at a sprained ankle they may start to question hospital charges.
Or the other options is take away coverage for congress and the senate and by law only allow them to have the same coverage the average American has. A few weeks in the healthcare system the rest of Americans deal with will cause both democrats and republicans to push through real reform.