Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Cambridge Study: Millions of ‘Uninsurable’, Pt.5 -- Lack of prevention without health insurance.

Previous…

Dr. Steffie Woolhandler is not only a co-author of this study, but is also a primary care physician at CHA (the ‘Cambridge’ group) as well as being an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. She summarizes this situation by saying: “A lot of people are suffering from a lack of health insurance.” How much are these ‘uninsurable’ suffering? A leading medical journal called Annals of Internal Medicine has reported in their the August 5 edition that our working-age Americans with chronic illness(es) are four times as likely to forego medical treatment because they have no health insurance than those who do have health insurance. Not so much as even one visit with a health professional in the past year. 22% of those without health insurance will forego treatment, as opposed to the 6.2% of those who do have health insurance, but still forego treatment.

Lead author of the study, Dr. Andrew Wilper was with the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle and was also a fellow at Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School when this study was conducted. Dr. Wilper laments both this and the cause, which is the lack of health insurance. As he describes it, “Many Americans are locked out of the system because they are [are without health insurance] and cannot afford this life-saving care.” He adds, "These are conditions that we take care of in the clinic. We know that we can prevent disabling complications or catastrophe if we are able to manage these conditions."

Continued…