Libertarian Legacy? Ron Paul's Campaign Manager, 49, Dies Uninsured, Of Pneumonia, Leaving family $400,000 Debt

I have to say I think Kent Snyder reaped what he sowed. Years ago I stopped caring about people who don't care about others.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Libertarian-Legacy--Ron-Pa-by-Rob-Kall-080705-175.html

July 5, 2008 at 22:24:40
By Rob Kall

What a testament to the Libertarian creed, which abhors the idea of universal health care. This loyal, passionate man, who died too young, left his family a debt of $400,000 in medical bills.

Who knows whether he put off getting treatment for the pneumonia that killed him because he was uninsured.

[...]

Sadly, the Libertarian heart apparently does not include health care. The poor guy raised tens of millions of dollars

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Insured and still at risk: Number of underinsured increased 80 percent between 2003 - 2010

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-09/cf-ias090611.php

Public release date: 8-Sep-2011
Contact: Mary Mahon
Commonwealth Fund
New Health Affairs study finds underinsured adults skip needed care and struggle with medical debt; Affordable Care Act reforms could substantially reduce the number of underinsured

New York, NY, September 8, 2011—The number of underinsured adults—those with health insurance all year, but also with very high medical expenses relative to their incomes—rose by 80 percent between 2003-2010, from 16 million to 29 million, according to a new Commonwealth Fund study published in the September issue of Health Affairs. Nearly half (44%) of U.S. adults—81 million people—were either underinsured or uninsured in 2010, up from 75 million in 2007 and 61 million in 2003.

The study finds that in addition to covering the uninsured, Affordable Care Act (ACA) reforms will also provide significant relief for those who are underinsured, potentially reducing their numbers by as much as 70 percent once the law is fully implemented.

"Underinsured families are at nearly as high risk as the uninsured because, while they have health insurance, holes or limits in their plans expose them to often unaffordable medical costs," said lead study author and Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen. "To reduce the number of underinsured, it will be critical for the plans offered under the Affordable Care Act reforms to keep deductibles and out-of-pocket costs low for essential, effective health care."

Although insured all year, underinsured adults reported high rates of access concerns and financial stress. The study finds that the underinsured go without needed health care and struggle to pay medical bills or medical debt at rates at times similar to those without health insurance. Nearly half (46%) of underinsured and 63 percent of uninsured adults didn't fill a prescription, see a doctor when sick, or went without a recommended medical test or treatment, compared with 28 percent of people who had more adequate health insurance. Half (52%) of underinsured and 58 percent of uninsured adults had trouble paying medical bills, were contacted by a collections agency over unpaid bills, had to change their way of life to pay medical bills, or were paying off medical debt over time. In contrast, about one fourth (27%) of adults with adequate health insurance reported such medical bill stress and debt.

How The Affordable Care Act Will Help The Underinsured

The study finds that Affordable Care Act reforms like premium assistance and reduced cost-sharing for lower and modest income families will provide significant support to those most likely to be underinsured—people with incomes below 250 percent of the federal poverty level, or $56,000 a year for a family of four. Seven out of 10 of the underinsured, and a similar share of those uninsured during the year, had incomes this low in the study.

The new law will also provide sliding scale premium assistance to families making up to 400 percent of poverty or $88,000 a year for a family of four. However, the study notes that those with incomes above 250 percent of poverty ($56,000 for a family of four) could face out-of-pocket costs that are high relative to their incomes if plan designs permit high deductibles or high cost-sharing for essential care.

"Inadequate health insurance puts families' health and financial security at risk," said Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis. "The good news is that the Affordable Care Act includes provision to improve coverage for everyone. If plans are well-designed to cover high-value care, in the future families won't have to live in fear of paying for health insurance that won't protect them when sick—families, especially low and middle income families, will have the greater security of knowing they can afford the health care they need."

Additional Study Findings:

Low-income families were most at risk: three quarters of those with incomes below $20,000 were either underinsured (26%) or uninsured (52%).

However, coverage has also eroded for middle income families. By 2010, nearly one out of six (16%) of adults with incomes between $40,000 and $60,000 a year were underinsured and another 19 percent were uninsured. In contrast, in 2003, only 5 percent of adults with incomes in this range were underinsured.

Underinsured adults often pay premiums that are high relative to their incomes in addition to facing high deductibles, limits on the number of visits and caps on what the plan will pay in a year. One-third (33%) of underinsured adults reported deductibles of $1,000 or more; 19 percent spent 10 percent or more of their income on premiums.

[...]

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Kyle Willis, Cincinnati Man, Dies From Toothache, Couldn't Afford Meds

http://www.aol.com/2011/09/03/kyle-willis-cincinnati-ma_n_947810.html?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl2|sec1_lnk3|92661#postComment

Laura Hibbard First Posted: 9/3/11 12:32 PM ET Updated: 9/3/11 01:14 PM ET

Kyle Willis, a 24-year-old man from Ohio, died on Wednesday from a tooth infection, Cincinati's WLWT reported.

According to the station, Willis' wisdom tooth began hurting two weeks ago, and dentists said it needed to be removed.

Willis, however, was a single father without health insurance, and couldn't afford the procedure.

After developing severe headaches and facial swelling, he went to the emergency room.

Although doctors recommended antibiotics and pain medication, Willis could only afford one.

Patti Collins, Willis's aunt, told WLWT what happened next.

"'The (doctors) gave him antibiotic and pain medication. But he couldn't afford to pay for the antibiotic, so he chose the pain meds, which was not what he needed,' Collins said. Doctors told Willis' family that while the pain had stopped, the infection kept spreading -- eventually attacking his brain and causing it to swell."

Willis leaves behind a 6-year-old daughter, and family members are hoping to create a fund for her future college education.

Dr. Irvin Silverstein, a dentist at the University of California told ABC news that Willis' story isn't uncommon.

"People don't realize that dental disease can cause serious illness.The problems are not just cosmetic. Many people die from dental disease. When people are unemployed or don't have insurance, where do they go? What do they do? Silverstein said. People end up dying, and these are the most treatable, preventable diseases in the world."

Four years ago, 12-year-old Demonte Drived died after his mother, Alyce, couldn't find a dentist who took Medicaid and bacteria from a tooth abscess spread to his brain.

A Kaiser Family Foundation report found that between 2007 and 2008, the number of uninsured adults rose by 1.5 million.

ABC news added that in April the same foundation also found that 33% of people skipped dental care because they could not afford it.


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Medicare Administrative Costs

http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/07/health-care-rationing-death-panels

July/August 2010 Issue

[.....]

In a country that already spends more than 16 percent of each GDP dollar on health care (PDF), it's easy to see why so many people believe there's simply not enough of it to go around. But keep in mind that the rest of the industrialized world manages to spend between 20 and 90 percent less per capita and still rank higher than the US in overall health care performance. In 2004, a team of researchers including Princeton's Uwe Reinhardt, one of the nation's best known experts on health economics, found that while the US spends 134 percent more than the median of the world's most developed nations, we get less for our money—fewer physician visits and hospital days per capita, for example—than our counterparts in countries like Germany, Canada, and Australia. (We do, however, have more MRI machines and more cesarean sections.)

Where does the money go instead? By some estimates, administration and insurance profits alone eat up at least 30 percent of our total health care bill (and most of that is in the private sector—Medicare's overhead is around 2 percent). In other words, we don't have too little to go around—we overpay for what we get, and we don't allocate our spending where it does us the most good. "In most [medical] resources we have a surplus," says Dr. David Himmelstein, cofounder of Physicians for a National Health Program. "People get large amounts of care that don't do them any good and might cause them harm [while] others don't get the necessary amount."

[...]

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Santorum’s Message To People Who Can’t Afford Health Care Costs: Lower Your Cell Phone Bill

There is a video of Santorum's comments at this link:

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2011/08/08/290934/santorums-message-to-people-who-cant-afford-health-care-costs-lower-your-cell-phone-bill/

By Igor Volsky on Aug 8, 2011 at 3:13 pm

During a meeting with the editorial board of the Des Moines Register on Friday, Rick Santorum said that people who can’t afford health care should stop whining about the high costs of medical treatments and medications and spend less on non essentials. Answering a question about the uninsured, Santorum explained that health care, like a car, is a luxury resource that is rationed by society and recalled the story of a woman who said she was spending $200 a month on life-saving prescriptions. Santorum told her to stop complaining and instead lower her cable and cell phone bills:

SANTORUM: All the other necessities of life, we allow people to have varying degrees of creature comforts, if you will. Why? Because we are people who ration our resources based upon what’s important to us and health care has to be one of those things, which is in the mix of things we make decisions about as to what type of, what kind of money we want to allocate to that.

I had a woman the other day who came up and complained to me that she has to pay $200 a month for her prescriptions…I said, in other words, this $200 a month keeps you alive, she goes yes. I said, and you’re complaining that you’re paying $200 a month and it keeps you alive? What’s your cable bill? I mean, what’s your cell phone bill? Because she had a cell phone. And how can you say that you complain that you have $200 to keep you alive and that’s a problem? No, that’s a blessing!

But for the majority of Americans, crawling out of medical debt isn’t as simple as changing to a cheaper phone plan. According to a 2007 study, more than 60 percent of all bankruptcies are “actually capsized by medical bills” and most bankruptcy filers are “middle-class, well-educated homeowners” who can probably control their texting addictions. A more recent study published this year found that bankruptcy rates are particularly high among cancer patients, but “much lower for people age 65 and up, who would be eligible for Medicare.”

==================================================

My comments

Of course, Santorum has health care subsidized by taxpayers.
And if someone has $200/month in prescriptions, she probably has hefty medical bills, even with co-pays.

I noticed from the video that he doesn't say how much her cable and cell phone bills are. He also doesn't say if the cell phone is her only phone, which is the case for many people.

I have a land line which costs $20/month. For emergencies while driving, I have a pre-paid cell phone, which costs me @20 every 3 months.



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Health Insurers Sacrifice Americans for Profit

http://www.truth-out.org/health-insurers-sacrifice-americans-profit/1312391666

Wednesday 3 August 2011
by: Wendell Potter, The Center for Media and Democracy

Three of the biggest health insurers have announced quarterly earnings in the past few days. If Americans were able to eavesdrop on what executives from those firms tell their Wall Street masters every three months, they would have a better understanding of why premiums keep going up while the number of people with medical coverage keeps going down.

It only takes three words, when you get right down to it, to describe the real of those folks: profits over people.

CIGNA and Humana are scheduled to report earnings this week. The three companies that have already spoken -- UnitedHealth, WellPoint and Aetna -- earned a combined $2.51 billion from April through the end of June, more than analysts expected. On a per share basis, their earnings were up more than 17 percent on average compared with the second quarter of 2010.

[.....]

One of the secrets to achieving these results is what the insurers euphemistically call "medical management." That often translates into denied claims and denied coverage for doctor-ordered care. The fewer claims you pay and the more procedures you refuse to pay for, the more money is left over for investors to put in their pockets.

Another important way they've been able to sustain such a string of impressive earnings results is to shift more and more of the cost of care to their policyholders. An increasing percentage of these companies' policyholders are enrolled in plans that require greater cost sharing. Those policyholders pay more for care out of their own pockets than ever before while their insurers are paying much less.

[...]

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First Study of Its Kind Shows Benefits of Providing Medical Insurance to Poor

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/health/policy/07medicaid.html?_r=1&smid=fb-nytimes&WT.mc_id=BU-SM-E-FB-SM-LIN-SFB-070811-NYT-NA&WT.mc_ev=click

By GINA KOLATA
Published: July 7, 2011

When poor people are given medical insurance, they not only find regular doctors and see doctors more often but they also feel better, are less depressed and are better able to maintain financial stability, according to a new, large-scale study that provides the first rigorously controlled assessment of the impact of Medicaid.

While the findings may seem obvious, health economists and policy makers have long questioned whether it would make any difference to provide health insurance to poor people.

It has become part of the debate on Medicaid, at a time when states are cutting back on this insurance program for the poor. In fact, the only reason the study could be done was that Oregon was running out of money and had to choose some people to get insurance and exclude others, providing groups for comparison.

[.....]

Until now, the arguments were pretty much irresolvable. Researchers compared people who happened to have insurance with those who did not have it. But those who do not have insurance tend to be different in many ways from people who have it. They tend to be less educated and to have worse health habits and lower incomes, said Dr. Alan M. Garber, an internist and health economist at Stanford. No matter how carefully researchers try to correct for the differences “they cannot be completely successful,” Dr. Garber said. “There is always some doubt.”

The new study, published Thursday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, avoided that problem. Its design is like that used to test new drugs. People were randomly selected to have Medicaid or not, and researchers then asked if the insurance made any difference.

Health economists and other researchers said the study was historic and would be cited for years to come, shaping health care debates.

[...]

In its first year of data collection, the study found a long list of differences between the insured and uninsured, adding up to an extra 25 percent in medical expenditures for the insured.

Those with Medicaid were 35 percent more likely to go to a clinic or see a doctor, 15 percent more likely to use prescription drugs and 30 percent more likely to be admitted to a hospital. Researchers were unable to detect a change in emergency room use.

Women with insurance were 60 percent more likely to have mammograms, and those with insurance were 20 percent more likely to have their cholesterol checked. They were 70 percent more likely to have a particular clinic or office for medical care and 55 percent more likely to have a doctor whom they usually saw.

The insured also felt better: the likelihood that they said their health was good or excellent increased by 25 percent, and they were 40 percent less likely to say that their health had worsened in the past year than those without insurance.

[...]


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Medicaid kids denied medical care, says study

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43416157/ns/health/

By Lindsey Tanner

updated 6/15/2011 5:26:54 PM ET

CHICAGO — Children on public insurance are being denied treatment by doctors at much higher rates than those with private coverage, according to an undercover study that had researchers pose as parents of sick kids seeking an appointment with a specialist.

Snubbed even by specialists whose offices supposedly accept public insurance patients, these kids also had to wait much longer to see a doctor. Low Medicaid reimbursements are the likely reason, the study authors said.
The study was done in Cook County, Ill., the nation's second-most populous county which includes Chicago, but the researchers and others say the results likely reflect practices around the country.

[.....]

The study results suggest many of the 40 million publicly insured U.S. children are not getting recommended timely treatment for dangerous conditions including asthma, diabetes and depression, she said.

"I work in an emergency room ... where you see the long-term consequences of people who did not get the care they needed," Rhodes said.

The study appears in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

[...]

To test whether type of insurance influences doctors' willingness to schedule appointments, the researchers posed as parents of fictitious sick children referred to specialists by primary-care doctors or emergency room physicians. Seven scenarios were created, including a 9-month-old with a severe skin rash, a 7-year-old with diabetes, a 12-year-old with a suspected broken arm and a 13-year-old with symptoms of severe depression.

The researchers phoned 273 specialty clinics twice, a month apart, seeking an appointment with doctors including dermatologists, allergists, psychiatrists and bone specialists. In one call, the children were said to have private insurance; in the other, they were insured through Illinois' Medicaid program.

Overall, specialists refused to grant appointments for 66 percent of the Medicaid children, versus only 11 percent of privately insured youngsters.

Among 89 clinics that accepted both insurance types, Medicaid children had to wait an average of 42 days for an appointment, versus 20 days for private coverage.

In about half the calls, clinics asked about insurance before telling callers whether an appointment was available. In other cases, callers volunteered their insurance information — and were often told that Medicaid was the reason the appointment request was denied, the researchers said.

[...]

All appointments made were canceled at the end of the call. Many specialists told about the study afterward said they wanted to see any kids "who need to see me" but that they worked within health systems or hospitals that for financial reasons discouraged them from treating too many patients on public aid, Rhodes said.

In Illinois, Medicaid pays doctors about $100 for office visits like those sought in the study, versus an average of $160 from private insurers, the researchers said.

[...]

Wegner, a Medicaid consultant and chairman of Community Care of North Carolina, a managed care group that includes most primary care doctors in his state, said accountable care organizations to be set up starting next year would help address the disparities. The groups were part of President Barack Obama's health care law.

[...]


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Medicare Saves Money

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/opinion/13krugman.html?_r=1

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: June 12, 2011

[.....]

The idea of Medicare as a money-saving program may seem hard to grasp. After all, hasn’t Medicare spending risen dramatically over time? Yes, it has: adjusting for overall inflation, Medicare spending per beneficiary rose more than 400 percent from 1969 to 2009.

But inflation-adjusted premiums on private health insurance rose more than 700 percent over the same period. So while it’s true that Medicare has done an inadequate job of controlling costs, the private sector has done much worse. And if we deny Medicare to 65- and 66-year-olds, we’ll be forcing them to get private insurance — if they can — that will cost much more than it would have cost to provide the same coverage through Medicare.

By the way, we have direct evidence about the higher costs of private insurance via the Medicare Advantage program, which allows Medicare beneficiaries to get their coverage through the private sector. This was supposed to save money; in fact, the program costs taxpayers substantially more per beneficiary than traditional Medicare.

[...]

And then there’s the international evidence. The United States has the most privatized health care system in the advanced world; it also has, by far, the most expensive care, without gaining any clear advantage in quality for all that spending.

[...] [Note: U.S. has lower life expectancy than a bunch of other countries.]

Wait, it gets worse. Not every 65- or 66-year-old denied Medicare would be able to get private coverage — in fact, many would find themselves uninsured. So what would these seniors do?

Well, as the health economists Austin Frakt and Aaron Carroll document, right now Americans in their early 60s without health insurance routinely delay needed care, only to become very expensive Medicare recipients once they reach 65. This pattern would be even stronger and more destructive if Medicare eligibility were delayed. As a result, Mr. Frakt and Mr. Carroll suggest, Medicare spending might actually go up, not down, under Mr. Lieberman’s proposal.

O.K., the obvious question: If Medicare is so much better than private insurance, why didn’t the Affordable Care Act simply extend Medicare to cover everyone? The answer, of course, was interest-group politics: realistically, given the insurance industry’s power, Medicare for all wasn’t going to pass, so advocates of universal coverage, myself included, were willing to settle for half a loaf. But the fact that it seemed politically necessary to accept a second-best solution for younger Americans is no reason to start dismantling the superior system we already have for those 65 and over.

[...]

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Whey do Republicans think seniors don't care about their children and grandchildren?

Why do Republicans assume older people only object to the elimination of the current Medicare system out of self-interest, rather than caring about the future of their children and grandchildren? This is particularly bizarre because they claim cutting back on such benefits is for the purpose of reducing the federal deficit, which they claim they want to do for the sake of these same children and grandchildren.

http://www.aarp.org/health/medicare-insurance/info-06-2011/paul-ryan-medicare-voucher-plan.html

by: Patricia Barry | from: AARP Bulletin | June 1, 2011

Republicans' proposed Medicare voucher system, which experts say would shift more costs to beneficiaries, has set off a firestorm of opposition from older Americans and brought loud protests from Democrats — a response that for the moment has stymied Republicans' timetable for forcing the issue.

Under the proposal by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and passed by the House, future Medicare enrollees now younger than 55 would no longer receive guaranteed benefits. Instead, the government would provide a set amount of money for them to buy their own private insurance.

[.....]

An analysis by the Congressional Budget Office estimated that by 2030, under Ryan's voucher system, typical 65-year-olds would pay 68 percent of the cost of their Medicare coverage out of pocket, compared with the 25 percent they pay now.

Angry older Americans confronted Republican members of Congress at town hall meetings during the spring recess. Several opinion polls found that two of three current beneficiaries prefer to keep Medicare as it is now.

"I think there's a nervousness among seniors that if Congress ends Medicare as they know it for younger people, they could also decide to do away with it for everybody else," says Robert Blendon, Harvard professor of health policy and political analysis.

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Medicare Versus Private Insurance: The Data

To see the table, please click on the link:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/medicare-versus-private-insurance-the-data/

June 12, 2011, 4:52 PM
Medicare Versus Private Insurance: The Data
NHE web data (pdf), Table 13. I deflated both sides by the consumer price index.

Note that the table does both a raw comparison and a comparison of “common benefits”, which takes care of the problem of differential coverage. If you look at the bottom of the table, you’ll see that on both comparisons Medicare payments have grown 1 percentage point more slowly than insurance premiums over the past 40 years.That adds up to a lot.

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Eg. Looking at Common Benefits, the increase from 2002 to 2009 is

4.6 for Medicare
6.7 for private health insurance


I expect the CEO and other executive pay for health insurance companies has ballooned similarly as those for other companies, which would account for at least part of the increased increase for the private companies.


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Joe Lieberman’s Plan to Make Health Care Worse and More Expensive

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/10/joe-liebermans-plan-to-make-health-care-worse-and-more-expensive/

June 10, 2011, 12:25 PM
Paul Krugman

So Joe Lieberman is proposing that we raise the Medicare eligibility age. That’s a truly cruel idea; as it happens, I know several people who are hanging on, postponing needed medical care, hoping that they can make it to 65 before something terrible happens. And if I know such people in my fairly sheltered social circles, just imagine how widespread such stories must be.

But beyond that, think about what it means to move people out of Medicare into private insurance, if they can get it.

Medicare has its problems — but all the evidence says that it is substantially more cost-effective than private insurance. Partly this is because it has lower administrative costs; partly it’s because Medicare is able to use its market power to negotiate lower prices. And the international evidence is overwhelming: single-payer systems are much cheaper than systems centered on private insurance.

So think of this as a national interest thing rather than a budget thing: Lieberman is proposing that we move a substantial number of older Americans into a worse, more expensive health care system. Why would you want to do such a thing, as opposed to raising enough additional revenue to keep them on Medicare?


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Cancer costs put treatments out of reach for many

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43293682/ns/health-cancer/

By Debra Sherman
Reuters
updated 6/6/2011 12:08:44 PM ET 2011-06-06T16:08:44


CHICAGO — The skyrocketing cost of new cancer treatments is putting advances in fighting the deadly disease out of reach for a growing number of Americans.

Cancer patients are abandoning medical care because the costs are simply too high and medical bills -- even among the insured -- are unmanageable, studies show.

"There's a growing awareness that the cost of cancer treatment is unsustainable," said Dr. Lee Schwartzberg, an oncologist who did a study examining the factors that contributed to patients quitting their oral cancer drugs.

Cancer is one of the most costly diseases to treat, largely because many patients are treated over a long term, often with expensive new drugs that are complicated to produce and not available in generic form. As insurance companies cut all benefits, reimbursements on cancer treatments have also declined

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Patients with co-payments of more than $500 were four times more likely to abandon treatment than those with co-payments of $100 or less, Schwartzberg said. Claims with the highest co-payments had a 25 percent abandonment rate, compared with 6 percent for co-payments of less than $100.

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The thing that surprised him most, Zafar said, was how much the insured struggled with their medical bills.

"Ninety-nine percent of the patients in our study were insured and 83 percent said they had prescription coverage. People still couldn't afford groceries and were spending life savings on cancer care," Zafar said.

Even with health insurance, out-of-pocket expenses averaged $712 per month for co-payments for doctor visits, prescription drugs, lost wages, travel to appointments and other expenses.

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Dr. Scott Ramsey authored a study that examined a cancer diagnosis as a risk for personal bankruptcy. Using cancer registries and bankruptcy records in Washington state, he found that a diagnosis of lung cancer had the highest risk of bankruptcy -- 8 percent versus 0.3 percent in the general population in the same geographic area.

"We looked at (bankruptcy) 1, 3 and 5 years after a diagnosis and the rate ranged from two to six times higher," he said.

Dr. Ronald Ennis, a radiation oncologist at St. Luke's-Roosevelt and Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, studied the impact a weak economy has on the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. He said he found exactly what he had expected: There was a dramatic decline in cancer treatment during times of high unemployment.

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More Money, Better Health?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110527162502.htm

ScienceDaily (May 27, 2011) — A new study from George Mason University and the Urban Institute reveals that greater spending on medical services means better overall health for Medicare participants.

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Previous reports showed that Medicare spending varies greatly by geographic area, but with little to show for it-the health outcomes for people who live in expensive geographic areas are not necessarily better than those who live in less expensive geographic areas. As a result, policymakers have considered limiting Medicare payments in high-cost areas.

But, as described in their recent study, "Medical Spending and the Health of the Elderly," the research team found that spending more on Medicare medical expenses actually resulted in greater survival and a better overall health score, using an index that measures perceived health and activity limitations

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"Over this three-year period-controlling for people's health when they first come into the survey and new diagnoses they may have had over the course of the three years-what was their health like at the end of the observation period? And did that vary with how much medical care they received as individuals?" Hadley asks.

The statistical analysis indicates that the individuals' health did vary with their medical care spending. Over a three-year span, for a 10 percent increase in medical spending, there was 1.9 percent increase in the patient's health score, called the Health and Activity Limitations Index and a 1.5 percent greater survival probability.

The researchers classify this finding as a "modest effect" but stress that "the key thing is that we did find a positive relationship as opposed to other studies which have suggested that there's no relationship between how much care a person receives and what their health outcomes are.

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Health Reform Essential to Young Adults in U.S.: Nearly Half Can't Afford Needed Health Care

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110526064631.htm

ScienceDaily (May 26, 2011) — Young adults ages 19-29 are struggling to get the health care they need more than almost any other age group, demonstrating the need for Affordable Care Act provisions, some already in place, that will expand health insurance and make it more affordable, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report. The report found that in 2010, 45 percent of young adults couldn't afford the care they needed, meaning they didn't fill a prescription, didn't go to the doctor when they were sick, or skipped a test, treatment, or follow-up visit, up from 32 percent who went without needed care because of cost in 2001.

The Affordable Care Act is already making a difference for young adults. Early reports by five national insurance carriers indicate that more than 600,000 young adults have obtained new insurance coverage since a key provision allowing them to stay on their parents' health insurance until age 26 went into effect in 2010. The authors say that number is certain to climb through the summer as young adults graduate from high school and college and more employers open enrollment to this age group. Young adults will see the biggest benefits from health reform in 2014 when expanded Medicaid coverage begins and health insurance exchanges with premium subsidies for private plans are launched, providing nearly universal coverage for the nearly 15 million 19- to 29-year-olds who are uninsured

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MEDICAL BANKRUPTCY

http://blog.healthcareforamericanow.org/2009/06/04/medical-bankruptcy-time-to-update-that-statistic/

Posted on June 4th, 2009 by Jason Rosenbaum in Profits Before People

Medical bills are behind more than 60 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday in a report they said demonstrates that healthcare reform is on the wrong track.

More than 75 percent of these bankrupt families had health insurance but still were overwhelmed by their medical debts, the team at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School and Ohio University reported in the American Journal of Medicine.

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Medical insurance deficient for Lupus patients

I talked to a friend with Lupus Tuesday, and she confirmed her insurance wouldn't pay for drugs that her doctor has prescribed, which have helped her, because the insurance company labels them "experimental". She said she is able to afford them because he doctor gives her free samples.

http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2009/03/01/milestone0301.html%3Fcxntlid%3Dinform_artr

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, March 01, 2009

It was exactly like “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

Except it all took place within the drawl-inflected walls of the Georgia Capitol. And instead of Jimmy Stewart, the lead role belonged to Regina Olmstead, a 45-year-old secretary/bookkeeper for a Palmetto tire shop.

“I was like a nervous wreck getting here,” Olmstead confided one recent morning as she waited patiently inside Senate Committee Room 125 for Lupus Awareness Day to begin. It was her first trip to the Capitol to try to buttonhole elected officials, and the budding citizen-activist had arrived at 7:45 a.m.

“I got the last handicapped spot,” said Olmstead, seemingly unimpressed with having mastered the one thing harder to pull off at the Gold Dome than balancing the budget. “They really need more parking here.”

Olmstead was one of about 75 people here to hand out literature, politely bend lawmakers’ ears and conduct a rousing rally where some of those leaning most heavily on canes still managed to clap the loudest. Olmstead herself had chosen to ignore her chronic joint pain, fatigue and feelings of trepidation so “they” —- the politicians and others who inhabit the Capitol, making countless decisions that affect Georgians’ lives —- could hear from a “lobbyist” who knows the lupus issue all too well.
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Some 55,000 Georgians have the auto-immune disease that causes severe inflammation, pain and damage to the body. Symptoms can range from the frequent fatigue, headaches and “butterfly” face blotches Trisha M. Saxton, 20, of Marietta experiences to the major organ problems that claimed the life of Olmstead’s older sister (another sister also has the disease).

A pharmaceutical Catch-22 doesn’t help. Insurance won’t pay for some effective drugs because they weren’t developed specifically for treating lupus. But the last FDA-approved drug to specifically treat lupus hit the market in … well, let’s just say that Dwight Eisenhower’s name probably hadn’t been heard this much at the Georgia Capitol since D-Day.

“We haven’t had a new drug for lupus for 50 years, since Eisenhower was president,” Olmstead told Butler at the meeting, which was meant to raise awareness of the disease and learn more about navigating Georgia’s public health and insurance policy waters. “So we have to borrow other people’s drugs.”