In response to Bill Scanlon’s article in the new InDenverTimes:
I agree that no one in the U.S. really has health insurance. Thanks to a tax code that discounts employer-sponsored insurance, It’s tied to your job (for most people), so you can lose it with job loss. This also exposes you to risk of developing a pre-existing condition, which can make it quite difficult to find coverage.
The tax code also encourages people to buy more insurance than they otherwise would, which has turned insurance into prepaid health care. This encourages over-consumption, discourages price competition, and leads to increased costs. But the answer is not more government controls, but less. For details on what this would look like, see here:
In the above article Bill Scanlon writes: “The Institute of Medicine estimates that 18,000 Americans died needlessly last year because they weren’t insured or were underinsured.”
The Rocky Mountain News published an article that disputes claims like this here. For a more detailed critique of the 18,000 figure, see this well-researched article: Health Care Reform: Do Other Countries Have the Answers?
But for sake of argument, what if the 18,000 figure is true? This pales in comparison to those who die from medical errors. The Institute of Medicine reports that “between 44,000-98,000 Americans die from medical errors annually. … Medical errors kill more people per year than breast cancer, AIDS, or motor vehicle accidents.“ I guess politicizing some forms of death are more lucrative than others for the political class.
Bill Scanlon also writes: “The Chamber of Commerce estimates that the average Colorado family with private health coverage pays an additional $900 in premiums to cover the cost of care for the uninsured.”
I’d like to see this study. According to data from the Lewin Group for a report it did for the 208 Commission, this cost is just $85 per insured Colorado resident. See here for references. Speaking of cost-shifts, what about Medicare and Medicaid? Bloomberg reports that:
Inadequate reimbursements by programs such as Medicare and Medicaid increase the annual cost of covering a family of four by $1,788
