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CCH® BENEFITS — 10/05/09

Nearly 45,000 Adults Each Year Die Due To Lack Of Health Insurance

From Spencer's Benefits Reports: Nearly 45,000 adults in the United States die each year due to lack of health insurance, according to the results of a study, Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults, published in the September 17 issue of the Journal of Public Health. More precisely, the study’s estimate was “as many as 44,789 deaths.” The Institute of Health and the Urban Institute previously estimated that approximately 20,000 people in the U.S. died each year due to lack of health insurance.

The authors, physicians from the Harvard University Medical School, conducted a survival analysis using data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics. They analyzed participants between the ages of 17 and 64 to determine whether lack of health insurance at the time of the interview predicted death.

Adjusting for age and gender, the researchers found that risk of mortality among the uninsured was 40% than that among the insured. After additional adjustment for race/ethnicity, income, education, self- and physician-rated health status, body mass index, leisure exercise, smoking, and regular alcohol use, the uninsured were more likely to die than the insured.

Consequently, the researchers concluded that uninsurance is associated with mortality. Despite changes in medical treatments and the demography of the uninsured since a similar study in the mid-1980s, these results seem consistent with the results of a study for the prior time period, the researchers noted. The researchers also observed that the Institute of Medicine identifies three factors that influence health outcomes: not getting care when needed, not having a regular source of care, and not getting continuity of coverage.

“The increased risk of death attributable to uninsurance suggests that alternative measures of access to medical care for the uninsured, such as community health centers, do not provide the protection of private health insurance,” the researchers concluded. “Despite widespread acknowledgment that enacting universal coverage would be life saving, doing so remains politically thorny. Now that health reform is again on the political agenda, health professionals have the opportunity to advocate universal coverage.”

For more information on this and related topics, consult the CCH Pension Plan Guide, CCH Employee Benefits Management, and Spencer's Benefits Reports.

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