Cost of No Health Insurance
08 05 08 - 20:21
Perhaps the real issue is not what is the cost of having health care but, more important, what is the cost of not having health care. An organization called Families USA (a health care advocate) has just released some rather concerning facts.
You can access this on a computer to compare the results in all 50 states of deaths caused by not having health insurance.
For Oklahoma:
Working-age people without health insurance die sooner. Families USA estimates that more than nine working-age Oklahomans die each week due to lack of health insurance (approximately 470 people in 2006).
Between 2000 and 2006, the estimated number of adults between the ages of 25 and 64 in Oklahoma who died because they did not have health insurance was nearly 3,000.
Across the U.S., in 2006, twice as many people died from lack of health insurance as died from homicide.
Rather disturbing as the U.S. begins to look like a Third World nation.
We can do better. We must do better.
Dick Ward, Okay
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