Dying For Coverage

Calitics: Dying For Coverage

Among other revelations in this Calitics review of a Families USA report:

In 2006, more than 3,000 people (one 9/11 unit of death) died in California as a direct result of not having health insurance. That's eight people a day. Imagine if a serial killer went on a spree and killed eight people a day for a whole year. What would our response be?

The trend holds true for the preceding years since 2000: more than six 9/11 units of death (19,900) because of no health insurance. And that's just in California.

Across the United States, twice as many people died from lack of health insurance as from homicide, a total of 22,000 people.

Shouldn't there be a "three strikes" law for our healthcare system?

If some event or series of events had caused 22,000 deaths, what kind of outcry would there have been? How many Congressional hearings and emergency funds? How many countries invaded?

Terrorists killed 3,000 Americans during the same six years. To prevent more if this, we have spent $1,000,000,000,000 on war, squandered the lives of 4,000 Americans and 400,000 Iraqis, and cheerfully given up rights guaranteed for over 200 years by our constitution.

What would we be willing to give up to win the War on Health Insurance Terrorism?

All this has a personal reverberation for me. Nationwide, "uninsurance" is the third leading cause of death in my age group, following heart disease and cancer.

As you get older, you pay, on top of across-the-board annual increases, a near-catastrophic penalty for increasing age. My health insurance cost has now reached the point where I'm not sure I can continue to pay it.