Every year, nearly 45,000 people die from lack of health insurance and good medical care, Harvard University researchers have reported.
“We’re losing more Americans every day because of inaction . . . than drunk driving and homicide combined,” said Dr. David Himmelstein, co-author of the study and an associate professor at Harvard.
About 46.3 million people in the United States lacked coverage in 2008, up from 45.7 million in 2007.
A similar study in 1993 found that 18,000 die every year from lack of health care. The increase in deaths reflects the growing number of uninsured and the declining number of places that provide health care for the uninsured. Public hospitals and clinics have been shuttering or scaling back. Without a single-payer health system, these numbers are likely to get worse. A private system, with a motive of maximizing profits rather than treating people in need, will continue to fail poor and working-class people, who are most likely to lack health insurance.
