Joe Conason: The Real Death Panels

[flpoljunkie]

The Real Death Panels

By JOE CONASON

When Republican politicians and right-wing talking heads bemoan the fictitious “death panels” that they claim would arise from health care reform, they are concealing a sinister reality from their followers. The ugly fact is that every year we fail to reform the existing system, that failure condemns tens of thousands of people to die—either because they have no insurance or because their insurance companies deny coverage or benefits when they become ill.

The best estimate of the annual death toll among Americans of working age due to lack of insurance or under-insurance is at least 20,000, according to studies conducted over the past decade by medical researchers, and is almost certainly rising as more and more people lose their coverage as costs continue to go up.

They die primarily because they didn’t have the coverage or the money to pay doctors and thus delayed seeking treatment until it was too late. They don’t get checkups, screenings and other preventive care. That is why uninsured adults are far more likely to be diagnosed with a disease, such as cancer or heart disease, at an advanced stage, which severely reduces their chances of survival.

This isn’t news. Seven years ago, the Institute of Medicine found that approximately 18,000 Americans had died in 2000 because they had no insurance. Using the same methodology combined with Census Bureau estimates of health coverage, the Urban Institute concluded that the incidence of death among the uninsured was enormous. Between 2000 and 2006, the last year of that study, the total number of dead was estimated to have reached 137,000—a body count more than double the number of casualties in the Vietnam War.

more at link...

http://www.politickerny.com/4866/real-death-panels

[fascisthunter]

1. kick

my political poster.... "You are fighting to keep a system that kills people. Who are you fooling?"

[Cha]

2. Thank you,

Joe Conason! Rec'd~

[Riverman]

3. You Nailed it Joe! Thank you. Obama and the Democrats MUST

as a moral imperative talk non-stop making these points. If not, then clearly they are collaborators in the current "Death Panels" who do not want to change the current system because they benefit financially or with their political careers by keepping the system in place. Thus, they condem 20,000 people per year to death! Where are the religious and moral leaders on this? Where are the marchers/ protesters on the streets? More innocent people condemed to death every year than all of the recent wars! Yet they spend billions, trillions of the war making industries - that also kill innocent people.

Health Care for All is the Civil Rights issue of our times!