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Uninsured Utahns dying prematurely

Note that the group is "working age" not necessarily working people. And what exactly are the criteria that permit them to conclude that a death was caused by lack of coverage? I'm getting mighty tired of the constant drumbeat to insure everyone, no matter what the expense to the tax paying, working members of society. Get a job!

What does having insurance have to do with it? Insurance only offers minimal health care services. People are dieing and not getting health care because of the cost of the health care. These legislators need to look at what these for profit and investors have created with the excessive health care costs. No amount of insurance, unless you have the limitless taxpayers pockets to empty, will cover health care inflationary costs. People are looking at health care problems as an insurance problem, it's not an insurance problem, greed and investors profiteering is the problem in health care. From the pill makers to the cost of an asprin in a hospital is the problem in health care. Health care has unrestrained and uncontrolled open book on what they can and do charge for health care. The insurance companies are only a thrid party in getting health care and if the medical and pharmacuticals can escalte their prices then the insurance companies follow that inflation with higher premiums. Go after and challenge health care providers and don't waste the time and money on insurance companies. If health care cost come down so will the cost of health care insurance.

You don't "DIE" from not having insurance. You die because your body has suffered a trauma that it can't recover from. But hey.. lets give anyone who comes here without even a knowledge of the language free medical while the rest of Utahns who have no insurance lose their homes to pay for their medical bills. Seems so twisted.

Gee, maybe if we didn't spend all of our tax money invading third rate, middle eastern, dictatorships we could afford to insure all of our citizens! It's not like we don't know how to do it, we just lack the humanitarian will of countries like Canada.

@ Bob G-You sure don't know what you are talking about. The reasons for the healthcare crisis as it is has nothing to do with investors or greedy people. There are two main contributors.

1. Non paying patients who recieve care (illegals). When a hospital/doctor treats someone who can't pay (law prohibits hospitals to turn down treatment regardless of inability to pay), those costs do not get paid and therefore, are passed down to those who can pay. Thus the increase of prices.

2. Well, greed is part of it, but at the other spectrum. People sue whenever something happens and thus malpractice insurance rates go up. Doctors raise their fees to offset those rate increases.

Those are the two primary causes of the healthcare crisis.

@Please- don't be an ostrich. The fact that a person does not have insurance will dictate whether they will receive PROPER care for their illness. That is the crux of the argument.

@Facts-Don't twist the facts! It's people like you who like to put a spin to this. The article stated that 100,000 people ARE WORKING and do not have insurance. High deductables won't help.

If you believe this trype I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

Just another example of how it's far past time to have universal health care in this country. If every other advanced industrial country in the world has it, it makes no sense that we can't. The problem is that the powers that be enjoy the huge financial profits that accrue to their accounts--and that's a fact.

The government is already the largest purchaser of health care (Medicare, Medicaid and VA system). Insuring all people will result in lower costs to everyone. It is cheaper for a person to receive primary care, and catch problems early, than it is for them to develop a serious problem. Kind of like it is cheaper to perform the preventitive maintenance on your car than it is to buy a new car every few years. A person who presents at the emergency department of any hospital has to be stabilized and treated. Guess who pays for all of that treatment? The insured pay for it. Patients with insurance subsidize those who are uninsured. Rather than patients developing serious conditions and receiving the most expensive care possible in emergency departments and high acuity treatment in hospitals they could have access to primary care.

The question is not if we want to pay more. We are already paying much more than we need to under the current system. The question is if we want to pay less by insuring everyone.

My younger brother just died at age 52 from lack of health insurance. Sure it was really cancer that finally got him but the lack of health insurance made it so he couldn't afford any care for himself until it was to late. He worked full-time as a self employed artist. He did great work and I'll miss his perspective on life.

The comments I've seen on this forum don't seem to address the problem of lack of health care seem to be an excuse to put down those less fortunate. Or, maybe it's a manifestation of greed. We are absolutely the richest country in the world and yet we are more concerned with making sure the health care industry makes money then with helping our own citizens with a fundamental right for basic health care. Even if we had universal health care, the rich would still get better care because there would be a system of private health care for those that can afford it. Kind of like private schools when we have public schools for everyone. It's time for our society to value all people and provide not just insurance but health care.

We could certainly provide adequate coverage for a fraction of what we are spending on Bush's War. It is a matter of priorities. I feel very fortunate to have great insurance, but ashamed of the fact that so many others work so hard and cannot get insurance through their work and cannot afford the costs (over $300/month) and high deductibles for private insurance- if they even qualify. This is a serious area of neglect by our government.

No Facts, anonomous quotes, fraudulet reporting, typical of the socialist agenda. Those who want to live off the work of others. That the Deseret News would report such garbage is indicitive of promoting an "agend" and not of honest reporting. Sad to see a newspaper sink so low.

I recall recently a number of reports talking about how the number of deaths from "error" while under the care of a physician are rising, as well. So, people die from not having health insurance (I assume that means they aren't getting health care, since lack of a paper never killed anyone, as far as I know), and people die from actually getting care. Insurance actually leads to people using doctors more than they would otherwise, so by having everyone insured, we would be increasing the odds of suffering a medical "error" and dying. I'd love to see a good, non-biased study that took both of those things into consideration.

Another thing: is it just me, or does anyone else roll their eyes when they hear some group described as an "advocacy" group? I translate that to be "extraordinarily biased" because they are advocating for a particular side, not trying to get real answers, and I can't really trust this group when they tell me that people are dying because they are uninsured.

Finally, on the reporting. Since when does 150 people per year, divided by 52 weeks, equal AT LEAST three people per week?

Are we now to conclude that lack of health insurance is an illness? If so, will there be health insurance for health insurance?

I have a great job that I really enjoy, but it has no insurance. Thankfully, my husband's does, but it is expensive, over $300 a month, with a high deductible. Better than nothing, I guess, but it still leaves us with a lot to pay out of pocket before the coverage kicks in. So we often avoid going to the Dr. because we can't afford it, and can't afford the prescriptions we need, either. It's a complicated situation. Medical care is expensive because medical school is expensive and the Dr. has to pay student loans back, and malpractice insurance is so high because people sue, sometimes rightly so, often not. Therefore, insurance premiums are high and deductibles are high because the payments to the health care providers cost the insurance companies a lot. Prescriptions for new medications are extremely expensive. My husband needs Prevacid, which is expensive, even with insurance, so we have to settle for an older one, omeprazole, that doesn't work nearly as well. We were without insurance for 7 months last year, so we avoided the Dr. as much as possible. Still have a lot of medical bills to pay from that time. No easy solutions.

I agree with a lot of the comments here. This report seems fuzzy and incomplete at best. What are these people really dying of and how is that connected to health insurance? Cancer? Diabetes? Not getting preventive care to detect problems early and not affording more expensive later care? Please, be more specific on your reporting. This article does nothing but muddy the water.

The 3 people per week that are supposedly dying should get their priorities straight. They don't buy health insurance, but they have big-screen tv's, new homes, etc etc etc... They didn't mention that in the article, but it's true.

We are each responsible to provide for ourselves and our families. If you choose not to buy health insurance then I guess you can claim that you "can't afford" it. The truth of the matter is that a very small minority of people truly can't afford it. The rest choose to spend their money on other things. That's certainly their choice, but with choice comes consequence.

There is a least one valid point in the article: it's good for people to get preventative care. However, government is currently part of the problem, not the solution. The answer is not more government involvement, it's less.

I currently can't get health insurance because of government regulation of the industry. If you keep government where it belongs, market forces will find a health insurance product at an optimal price. Health insurance should be a way of sharing risk, not taking care of the poor.

The proper role of government is to protect my individual freedom, not to take care of me. Socialism will always fail because it's based on incorrect principles.

>They didn't mention that in the article, but it's true.

What a completely ignorant comment. Go away and come back with facts.


That out of the way, we can complain about profits, illegal aliens, or greed, etc. But over 80% of the cost of health care for the average American over their lifetome comes in the first 6 months, and the last 6 months of life.

We have become a society fearful of dying.

The cost to keep someone alive, in the face of serious illness, even at the end of life (70s-90s) is astronomical.

Should we support that kind of (excessive?) care, just because we have the technology and knowledge to do so?

Should a 90 year old receive extreme measures to stay alive even though their life expectancy is already down to months - because the family or the person themselves just can't let go?

This is a real tear-jerker!

Having HEALTH INSURANCE is not a GUARANTEE, a friend
of my husband needed heart surgery the insurance company refuse to cover so the doctor told my friend
and husband he has 6 weeks to live. The insurance
companies are out to make MONEY. I have so many friends that had to take out bankrupcy do to HEALTHCARE COSTS, they had HEALTH INSURANCE. WE NEED
HR 676 SINGLE-PAYER HEALTH INSURANCE PEOPLE NOT PROFIT TRUE FAMILY VALUES!