What you and so many of the rest of the objectors refuse to recognize is that we, those of us who have jobs and purchase health insurance (whatever our high, middle or low relative income level) ***are already ***paying the costs of other people going without.
We support indigent care directly through a portion of our tax load, some of which funds fire/rescue, emergency care, and other immediate costs. We also pay increased insurance premiums for the coverage we do have, as the hospital system tries to recover loses due to indigent care through higher prices and then insurance companies pass the costs along to us in turn. On top of that we pay higher prices for goods and services as businesses must recoup increased costs for their share of health insurance made available to employees.
And we pay a huge societal cost as early diagnosis and treatment is neglected because of financial concerns, resulting in acute illnesses that require highly specialized critical care to treat, with outcomes that are often much less positive. Poor medical outcomes (lengthy convalescence, disability, long term need for medication, etc.) translate into lowered productivity, reduced ability to support a family, and often a need for even greater societal support, all of which might have been avoided by early treatment. Even given a good medical outcome, financial outcomes for the patient and his/her family are commonly “less than optimum” (scare quotes appropriate) as they so frequently result in bankruptcy. Anyone who doesn’t recognize the net negative effects on our interconnected society doesn’t know enough to participate in the discussion.
Granted that it is difficult to uncover many specific instances of outright and immediate death resulting specifically from a lack of health insurance. But illness, and care, and the timing and the cost of that care are all a continuum. It’s kinda like a stairs, and we’re all on it. Some of us are up on the higher steps, and most of us are on some steps loosely describable as middle. Then there are those folks perched precariously on the bottom step. Our current health care “system” (again deliberate use of scare quotes) is a force pushing all of us downward. But for those up high, and even for us in the middle, moving downward a single step probably isn’t a life changing problem. But those folks who were on the lowest step already, due to whatever combination of circumstances their life had so far handed them, those poor bastards are now in the basement, screwed. That’s where the 45,000 estimate comes from. A lessening of positive results across the board, not an outright death sentence for designated individuals.
Since my non-discretionary income is already so burdened by the present system, perhaps it is premature to discuss only additions to this cost without making allowance for the savings that would result from universal care. I am not yet at all persuaded that there would actually be any additional cost.
ETA-- just read **curlcoat’s **latest vomit, which stands on its own as some of the most gratuitous rationalization for greed and lack of human compassion as I have ever heard-- since the last train wreck involving him/her.
I’ve answered everything, you just don’t like my answers.