[Crito]

Hospitals do "let" uninsured people die because they are not obligated to provide the full extent of their care capabilities to people who cannot afford it. Come in with a hole in your abdomen, and for sure they'll patch you up even if you don't have insurance. Come in riddled with cancer? Don't expect the same as they would give somebody who could pay themselves or had insurance.

This said, it is still a shoddy use of statistics. "1 in 1000 uninsured people die each year" by itself tells us pretty much nothing. What is the rate of death for insured people?

Wikipedia tells me that 8.39 in 1000 people die in America every year, so if uninsured people are only dying at a rate of 1 in 1000 every year, it seems to me that either it is beneficial to be uninsured, or uninsured people are not representative of the population (perhaps because many of them are young and healthy?).

I suspect that what is going on is this person actually meant to say something along the lines of "1 in 1000 people die every year in ways that could have been prevented if they had insurance" A subtle but important difference. The actual mortality rate of uninsured people is most likely much higher than 1 in 1000, but the deaths of uninsured people in motorcycle accidents would not be counted in that "1 in 1000" figure.

Either way, it is shoddy.

[brandonb]

Yes, I meant to say 1 in 1000 uninsured people die each year in ways that could be prevented by insurance coverage. Here's an article that references a few of the reports: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/20/us-usa-healthcare-...

[twistedpair]

> Come in riddled with cancer? Don't expect the same as they would give somebody who could pay themselves or had insurance.

Ah, yes, the classic American healthcare problem. The poor person just gets to go to hospice and keel over. The rich person gets to limp along, endure 3 rounds of chemo, and spend the few remaining months of her life hooked up to machines in what is arguably a Pyrrhic victory and even lower quality of life.

[Crito]

You know that many people actually survive cancer and go on to live otherwise regular lives, right?

[arrrg]

Many people survive cancer or can at least add many years to their life with relatively high quality of life.

Many others don’t survive, obviously, but the chance of survival of many cancers really isn’t so bad.

[twistedpair]

Thx. Spent years working in oncology, so I'm quite familiar that people can survive. My point is that American medicine is insanely expensive because we don't know where to draw the line. Now, more than before, we focus on anything to keep the heart beating and the lawyers from suing, regardless of whether the quality of life and and dignity of the patient is non-existent.

Given this, I would argue the "poor person" in this argument could easily get similar levels of necessary care as the insured individual through Medicare. The insured (preferably rich) person could however travel to all the best clinics, participate in many medical trials and experimental operations, and quite likely simply spend their final months of life as a guinea pig with a similar outcome as the "poor person." The only upside is the insured individual gets to bankrupt themselves and family in the process as insurance doesn't cover most of these non-standard therapies. I've seen it happen to too many people.

[akiselev]

Yes because chemo is the first thing we give to people with malignant cancers.