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Dayton
Business Journal...
Report:
Lack of health coverage costs lives in Ohio
by Laura
Englehart, Reporter
Wednesday,
June 20, 2012
Seventeen
Ohioans died each week in 2010 because they could not receive the
health care they
needed, according to a new report from Families USA
.
That
translates to more than 900 people annually between 25 and 64 years old.
The report,
Dying for Coverage, applies methodology from a 2002 Institute of
Medicine report
to state-level population and
mortality data to estimate how many patients die from inadequate access
to
care, Families USA said.
Across the
country, more than 26,000 uninsured or underinsured Americans died
prematurely
in 2010, the report said. That number has increased since 2005 by
almost 30
percent.
The reason
for those deaths varies, Families USA said.
“Many
Americans have had coverage denied because of pre-existing health
conditions.
Many others, particularly during the recent economic downturn, have
been priced
out of the insurance market as they have struggled to maintain homes
and feed
families in the face of continually rising insurance premiums. Still
other
families have fallen victim to the decade-long decline in
employer-sponsored
coverage,” the organization said in a release.
Families
USA is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to secure
quality,
affordable health care coverage for Americans. The organization said it
supports health care reform as a way to curb deaths from inadequate
access to
care.
“The
Affordable Care Act lets us wake up from this terrible health care
nightmare of
premature death. Wiping out health reform means the nightmare will
continue for
Ohioans and other Americans,” Families USA said.
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