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COPYRIGHT 2002 Thomson Financial Inc.
This is the second half of a two-part Perspectives on the consequences of uninsurance. The first part was published May 13.
Contrary to common myth, Americans who lack public or private health insurance do not get the health care they need but only "too little" care "too late" that leaves them vulnerable to severe consequences, an Institute of Medicine panel said May 21. Those include "be[ing] sicker and dy[ing] sooner" from many medical conditions and receiving "poorer care when they are in the hospital even for acute situations like a motor vehicle crash," the panel concludes in Care Without Coverage: Too Little, Too Late, a literature survey that's the second in a series of six reports to be issued by the Committee on the Consequences of Uninsurance.
In one national study from the 130 studies on insurance status, health care access, and outcomes the group reviewed, adults tracked over a 17-year period had a 25 percent greater chance of dying if they were among those who were uninsured at the beginning of the study, says IOM. Adults without health insurance also go without cancer screening tests, leading to late diagnosis and premature death. Uninsured diabetic adults don't get the eye and foot exams necessary to prevent blindness and lower-limb amputation. Uninsured people don't have regular access to drugs for managing conditions like high blood pressure and HIV infection.
Based on the research they reviewed, the panel estimates that around 18,000 premature deaths occur each year in the United States due to a lack of insurance coverage, panel member Edward Wagner, MD, director of Group Health Cooperative Puget Sound's W.A. McColl Institute for Healthcare...
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