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How will Obama, Clinton health care plans impact death by lack of insurance?

March 19th, 2008
By JILL MILLER ZIMON

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The Families USA report, Dying for Coverage for Ohio, was released yesterday. Families USA has released similar reports for Arizona, Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. The site contains other resources, including a section called, The Uninsured.

From the press release related to Ohio:

“Our report highlights how our inadequate system of health coverage condemns a great number of Ohioans to an early death simply because they don’t have the same access to health care as their insured neighbors,” Ron Pollack, Executive Director of Families USA, said today. “The conclusions are sadly clear—a lack of health coverage is a matter of life and death for many Ohioans.

“Health insurance really matters in how people make their health care decisions,” Pollack said. “We know that people without insurance often forgo checkups, screenings, and other preventive care.”

As a result, he said, uninsured adults are more likely to be diagnosed with a disease, such as cancer, in an advanced stage, which greatly reduces their chance of survival. The Institute of Medicine found that uninsured adults are 25 percent more likely to die prematurely than adults with private health insurance.

Another recent academic study found that uninsured adults between the ages of 55 and 64 are even more likely to die prematurely. For this group, a lack of health insurance is the third leading cause of death, following heart disease and cancer.

I’m not familiar with what Ohio’s U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown or Congresswoman Betty Sutton (D-13) have said about Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama’s health care plans and I couldn’t find anything direct with a little searching, but I’d like to. I know neither Ohio politician has stated how they cast their votes on 3/4 nor how they’ll vote as superdelegates.

FactCheck.org provides a comparison of the two plans here.

Read Obama’s explanation of his plan here. One of the main criticisms has been that it mandates coverage for all children, but not all adults. But in Obama’s speech in January 2007 to Families USA, while his plan was still in formation, he states something that implies that all adults would have - as in, possess and maintain and keep, not just have an oppotunity to have - universal health care:

Plans that tinker and halfway measures now belong to yesterday. The President’s latest proposal that does little to bring down cost or guarantee coverage falls into this category. There will be many others offered in the coming campaign, and I am working with experts to develop my own plan as we speak, but let’s make one thing clear right here, right now:

In the 2008 campaign, affordable, universal health care for every single American must not be a question of whether, it must be a question of how. We have the ideas, we have the resources, and we will have universal health care in this country by the end of the next president’s first term. [my emphasis]

Read Clinton’s explanation of her plan here. One of the main criticisms has been that it imposes monetary fines on individuals who do not have health insurance and already may not be covered due to financial constraints and that it forces people to buy something they may not want. Ohio Daily Blog posted a copy of the Obama flyer that identifies his primary points of opposition to Clinton’s plan.

The Health Care Blog analysis of Clinton’s plan is here but that blog doesn’t seem to have an analogous critique of Obama’s plan. For comparison, they have this one for John McCain. They also pit Clinton v. Obama here.

What are the statistics in your state of people who literally die because they don’t have health care? Which candidates’ plan do you think will most decrease that number?



This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 7:37 am and is filed under Family, Children, Newsweek Blogitics, Primaries, Ohio, John McCain, Barack Obama, 2008 Elections, Health, Health Care, Hillary Clinton, Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 15 Comments

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    Thank you Jill, that was an excellent post.

    I believe Clinton's is the far superior plan. Note one MAJOR, and underreported, difference between Clinton and Obama in the FactCheck.org analysis:

    Clinton's plan - not Obama's (or McCain's :) - would block insurers from rescinding coverage!

    This is a major scandal, I feel. In California, insurers have been criticized (and successfully sued) for their outrageous system of bonuses for staff who find reasons to cut very ill people requiring care from coverage.

    Altho I am not a supporter of HRC, this is clearly reason to look twice.
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    I agree with Marlowcan--this was an excellent post about an under-reported problem.

    I also agree that the Clinton plan is best.
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    Thanks both of you.

    But let me ask you this - what do you think about the "forced" nature of Clinton's plan? Is it worth it in the long run? (I am asking - not judging - I have my own opinion which I'm a little hesitant to share - but if you go first...)
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    The issue is definitely important -- both plans would affect "death by lack of insurance." Not only is recission a problem (Health Net was ordered to pay someone who was a victim of this practice nine million dollars, one reason for which was the hiring by Health Net of people who were rewarded for rescinding insurance policies). Emergency rooms are overloaded because people have neglected routine care and treating problems early, then develop worse problems.

    One doesn't have to be a transparently liberal group like "Families USA" [sic] or Kaiser (or Physicians For a National Health Plan, etc.) to understand the current state of health care is far from the best it can be. Make no mistake -- "job lock" due to health health insurance, a campaign issue for Bush the Elder in 1992 and Bill Clinton, remains an issue today (it is no longer surprising or shocking; we are largely numb to it; that doesn't mean we accept or enjoy it).

    Clinton's plan may be considered superior, yes. It won't satisfy the true far left, who would accept nothing short of federally provided and financed health care (commonly identified by the weasel language, "single-payer," as if there is any question who the payer may or should be).

    Actually, if you are curious, the best known federal health plan is being pushed by two people including JMZ's state's own Dennis Kucinich, the "Medicare For All" plan. (The plan is defective but is the most straightforward as well as the most ambitious approach to federal government provision as well as intervention in health care.) Extending Medicare to everyone actually is the most logical thing to do if the goal is federal intervention into and provision of health care in the USA.

    http://kucinich.house.gov/SpotlightIssues/spotl...
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    Uh I don't understand. I know that Obama has said that insurers would be required to accept people regardless of preconditions....so how could they rescind coverage?

    Also I know that Obama originally said he wanted to have a three tiered system. Health coverage similar to the one that government employees get; regulated private health care that people could pick and get subsidies if they couldn't afford it and those companies were required to meet certain conditions (how quickly they could raise premiums is one...he said Clinton didn't have that, and the no rejection of existing conditions); unregulated private health insurance for people that want it.

    It looks like this is how Clinton would handle the premium thing: Senator Clinton would limit premium payments to a percentage of income, "This guarantee will be be achieved through a premium affordability tax credit that ensures that health premiums will never rise above a certain percentage of family income."

    So the burden wouldn't be on the insurance companies, but the gov't. Am I wrong in any of my info?
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    "what do you think about the 'forced' nature of Clinton's plan?"

    (or in the more weasel-y words of the Health Security [older HillaryCare], being "asked to contribute"?)

    It's a tax that's not called a tax but is a step toward eventually calling it a tax or admitting it is a tax.
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    DLS: thanks for both comments. I agree that Kucinich has been bending people's ears on this for a very long time. I believe that sometime in the last year he tried to analogize what he wanted to the British system (I'm going out on a limb to say that some of his info may come from his British-born wife but I'm just being cute there).

    If it's a tax, and I can see why you'd say that, is it more efficient and well-spent to just pay it as a premium or better to have our taxes affected directly? Or does it not matter?
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    My understanding, which I confess is VERY rudimentary, is that Obama would like to install more cost containment and control measures, or at least that's what he is emphasizing. Theoretically I guess that could include increasing the burden on insurers but again, I am really weak in that area of knowledge. Other folks should jump in.
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    Jill M. Z.: There is a psychological (and political) tactic behind the mandatory payment of premiums. It disguises a tax and mandatory stuff as something else (just as what goes for health "insurance" is not insurance but pre-paid comprehensive health care). This is a form of taxation disguised as payment of premiums so it looks better and more palatable and is easier to sucker people into believing and doing. (They can be told they're "stakeholders" or "shareholders," something I'm surprised hasn't been done frequently before regarding taxes, though it risks the correct reply that votes then should be weighted by taxes paid just as real shareholders have votes to match their holdings. I'm also surprised by now that the misuse of "investment" when referring to government spending hasn't been extended to payment of taxes as well.)


    Note that the so-called "premiums" for Medicare (which the Clinton plan may come to resemble, possibly if not probably as a way to move toward Medicare for everyone -- I'm certain she's thought of this) are bogus. Medicare is financed primarily through general revenue, required by law (so-called "mandatory" spending). The "premiums" finance maybe 25 per cent or so of the total costs.

    This is a way to get people to participate in the plan and payment is a form of taxation, even if not called that; it is a way to get more people to participate and as it would include younger, healthier people, should in theory lower per capita costs as well as involve more people in the plan to make it easier to increase the federal government's role and scope in the future.

    Cost containment is already a concern, though it will be much greater in about 10-20 years. Also, almost as with the silly expectations of stem cell research as some miracle about to happen tomorrow (same with alternative energy sources), it is silly to expect magical savings from concentration on the object of fixation and obscession currently, namely chronic illnesses and lifest