Study: Over 2,200 US Veterans Died in 2008 Due to Lack of Health Insurance

[G_j]

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/11/study_over_2_200_us_veterans

Study: Over 2,200 US Veterans Died in 2008 Due to Lack of Health Insurance

On Veterans Day, a new study estimates four times as many US Army veterans died last year because they lacked health insurance than the total number of US soldiers who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in the same period. A research team at Harvard Medical School says 2,266 veterans under the age of sixty-five died in 2008 because they were uninsured. We speak to the report’s co-author, Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, professor of medicine at Harvard University and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program.


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AMY GOODMAN: Today is Veterans Day. We begin with a new study that estimates four times as many US Army veterans died last year because they lacked health insurance than the total number of US soldiers who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in the same period. A research team at Harvard Medical School says 2,266 veterans under the age of sixty-five died in 2008 because they were uninsured. Their estimates are based on their recently published findings in the American Journal of Public Health that shows how being uninsured raises a person’s odds of dying prematurely by 40 percent.

The researchers also found that nearly one-and-a-half million Veterans between the ages of eighteen and sixty-four were uninsured last year. While most veterans are eligible to receive care from the Veterans Administration, those who were not injured in combat and whose income is above a certain threshold are often ineligible.

The report’s authors say the healthcare legislation pending in the House and Senate will not significantly improve the situation.

The co-author of the report, Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, joins me here in our firehouse studio. She’s professor of medicine at Harvard University and a primary care physician in Cambridge. She is also co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program and testified about uninsured veterans before Congress in 2007.

We welcome you to Democracy Now! I mean, these are astounding figures. Tell us exactly what you found.

DR. STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER: Well, the risk of dying is actually elevated by about 40 percent among people who have no health insurance, and there’s just under 1.5 million uninsured veterans nationally. So applying those odds to those folks, it turns out that there’s almost 2,300 folks who die—veterans who die every year due to lack of health insurance.

Many of these folks, these veterans, would not be helped under the bills before the House and Senate, because they’ll be too affluent to qualify for Medicare. If they get subsidies at all—for Medicaid. If they get subsidies at all, the subsidies will be too small to make health insurance affordable. And they’re mostly working families, folks who don’t have the money to buy private insurance, but they have too much money to qualify for Medicaid or means-tested VA benefits.

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[stray cat]

1. Veterans are not covered by the VA?

[Love Bug]

2. They usually have to have a service-connected health problem to get coverage

Typically, vets without service-connected disabilities can get coverage if their income is below a certain level, but there will be copays involved. However, homeless vets can get coverage. Also, if you are unemployed and your income has dropped below a certain level you can get a hardship enrollment, as I did.

I'd be curious to know how many of these vets were eligible for coverage at the VA. I'll bet some were but didn't know about it because they assumed they had to have a service-connected disability to get it.

[EFerrari]

3. Some of them probably died while on a waiting list.

The VA seems to be completely overwhelmed.

[G_j]

4. ==

[G_j]

5. on the ED show right now! nt