3-27-08, 10:28 am

About 22,000 people died in 2006 in the US because they didn't have health insurance, according to an estimate by the Urban Institute. This is up substantially from 2000 when the Institute of Medicine announced as many as 18,000 people died because of the lack of health care coverage.

And while the numbers of deaths grew and the total number of the uninsured rose over the those six years, neither George W. Bush nor the Republican majorities in Congress made a single effort to alleviate the crisis.

In a teleconference with reporters March 26, Families USA President Ron Pollack discussed the impact of the crisis in America's health care system on ordinary people.

'For those people who are uninsured there are significant consequences that they bear. They are less likely to have a usual source of care. They are more likely, when they do get care, to get it in emergency rooms,' he said. They are also sicker, often can't afford prescription drugs and treatments, and die younger than those with insurance, he added.

In the state of Florida alone, six working people between the ages of 25 and 64 die each day due to a lack of health insurance coverage, Pollack said.

A recently released Families USA study of health insurance coverage state-by-state shows that, apart from Florida, in Missouri, as many as 10 working-age people die each day due to a lack of health insurance. In West Virginia, about four working age adults die each day from the lack of health care coverage. In states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, that number stands at two per day. So far Families USA has released similar data for 15 states.

Across the country, Pollack continued, twice as many people died in 2006 because of the lack of health insurance as those killed by homicide.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) expressed shock and anger at the failing health care system. She noted that the health care crisis deserves the same special attention that many politicians readily give to the issue of crime. 'Protecting the public to make sure that we preserve their health is certainly no less important than protecting them from crime,' she said.

'As a mom serving in Congress, I want to make sure that we can be part of a solution so that the next generation of Americans can ensure that health care is a right not a privilege,' Wasserman Schultz stated.

Wasserman Schultz rejected the reliance on emergency room care that pervades the system today. 'We're not talking about simple sniffles here,' she said. 'We're talking about death. It doesn't get any more significant than losing your life over a lack of health insurance.'

Dr. Arthur Fournier, a dean at the University of Miami School of Medicine, said most people who seek care primarily from emergency rooms wouldn't have to if they had access to affordable health care coverage.

Fournier is also an attending physician at Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital, which, he said, provides services to mostly working families. 'At least half of the admissions (at Jackson) are preventable admissions if only we had a way of providing health care as a right for every person and an effective system for prevention and primary care,' he argued.

The low-income patients who pass through his facility, Fournier added, face critical decisions everyday about choosing between paying for health care and buying other necessities like food or shelter for their families.

The risk of death in the health care system on such a scale is only the most alarming aspect of America's health care crisis, however. According to an AFL-CIO online survey of more than 26,000 of its members, supporters and family members, even people who pay for health insurance premiums face severe coverage and affordability problems that threaten their access to health care.

They too often face tough choices between seeking medical care or spending their earnings on other necessities. Reporting on the results of the survey on a teleconference Mar. 25 with health care activists, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker said, 'Because of outrageous costs one-third of the people who took our survey said they or someone in the family skipped medical care they needed.'

About 25 percent said they had trouble paying for needed care, and more than half described the insurance they have as inadequate or too expensive for covering their needs. More than 6 in 10 respondents say their costs associated with health care, from premiums to co-pays and other out-of-pocket expenses, have gotten worse over the past few years.

Almost all of the survey respondents – 95 percent – expressed serious concerns about being able to afford insurance premiums in the near future, Holt Baker said.

The respondents nearly unanimously agreed that the health care system in the US is fundamentally flawed or needs to be completely rebuilt. More than three out of four respondents see health care as a major issue for the 2008 elections and will vote based on the views of candidates on the issue, Holt Baker reported.

Because of the broad concern about the health care crisis, the AFL-CIO is pledged to leading a campaign to win universal health care in 2009, said Heather Booth who directs the AFL-CIO's health care campaign.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said that the health care crisis cannot be resolved employer by employer any more. It is a national problem that requires a national solution, he indicated.

Booth called for unity of broad coalitions of health care advocates through the 2008 elections to support candidates who will vote for a national solution to the health care crisis. While both Democratic presidential candidates offer solid proposals, Republican candidate John McCain is the wrong choice. 'John McCain takes us in the wrong direction,' said Booth. McCain offers the same 'hands-off' approach that George Bush had.

A McCain administration would simply preside over a growing number of deaths and uninsured as Bush did.

--Reach Joel Wendland at