Research help, please. How many people in the United States have died from lack of health insurance?

[BreweryYardRat]

One of my classes is discussing the 1930s Ukrainian genocide (Stalin starved 10 million people to death) this week, and there was a quote in one article that nearly froze my blood.

"Instead, Stalin saddled the victims of the crime with all the guilt for it: You are dying of hunger because you do not want to work, because you do not see the advantages of the kolkhoz."

Does this remind anyone of anything we've heard out of the Republican party since the right-wing/corporate extremists moved in the '80s?

I'd like to argue that the people who've died over the past 30 years because they're too poor to afford the skyrocketing cost of health care qualify as a small-scale genocide, perpetrated from callousness and greed rather than frothing authoritarian ideology.

[Vinca]

1. I've heard 18,000 a year thrown out there, but how could it be known?

Uninsured people - and I am one - don't go to the hospital when they're sick so if they die at home, who would know it was because they don't have insurance?

[BreweryYardRat]

5. Hm.

Pulling up statistics of deaths from things that are easily curable with enough money might do it. Also might be useful to see if there's any sort of way to differentiate between deaths from cancer where treatments failed to work and deaths from untreated cancer.

[Vinca]

7. If an uninsured person dies from untreated cancer, it's quite possible

it was never diagnosed in the first place. Unless there is an autopsy, you could only venture a guess.

[Cleita]

6. There's an organization that counts this and I think a google will bring it up.

I had it bookmarked and a computer crash wiped it all out. My senior memory isn't helping and I think if you go to the Physicians for a National Health Plan website: http://www.pnhp.org and look in their archives you will find the source that puts up the statistics.

[kestrel91316]

2. It's not SMALL-SCALE genocide, if you get my drift.

[area51]

3. Take a look at the below article ...

... which says 100,000 people here die each year b/c they can't afford healthcare.

Single-payer now.

[Matariki]

4. Sadly, through anecdotal evidence alone I can name a handful

<weeping>

[dysfunctional press]

8. none.

lack of health insurance has never killed anyone.

in most cases, people die due to a lack of oxygen being delivered to the brain.
there are a vast number of causes for that- but none of those causes are "lack of health insurance".

i'd be very surprised if anyone could find a case where the cause of death is noted as "lack of health insurance".

[Obamanaut]

9. That was my thought when I saw the OP. nt

[Atman]

10. It's hard to quantify something based on nothing, isn't it?

I was on the same track with you two. My first thought was, "Gosh, I might die without having a Bentley!" But that doesn't mean not having a Bentley would be what actually kills me.

.