Working In These Times
When We Can’t Afford to Be Sick: Access to Healthcare Drops Along with Economy
Slowly but surely the evidence is pilling up to show what the Great Recession have done to our health. As jobs disappeared, paychecks shrunk and healthcare coverage shriveled, the poorest among us increasingly turned to the only places where they shouldn’t be turned away – the nation’s emergency rooms.
The surprise is how much their numbers grew. Between 1997 and 2007, the nation’s hospitals witnessed a 23 percent increase in emergency room visits, according to a study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
This increase was double what normally should have taken place, the researchers said. This, however, wasn’t an equal equality rush on the nation’s emergency rooms. It was largely those on Medicaid who made up the increase.
But these are figures from before the economy took its great drive. What has happened since then?
Some of us stopped getting medical care. Some of us stopped going to hospitals. And, most likely, some of us got so sick without medical care that our problems were far worse when we finally find our way to a hospital.
SLIPPING THROUGH THE CRACKS
Consider. Between 2007 and 2009 one out of four Americans reported reducing their medical care. Those who cut back the most were the young and the unemployed, according to another study. This was recently released by National Bureau of Economic Research.
The study also showed the difference in what has happened here and in Europe as our economies tumbled downward. The rate of Americans who stopped getting medical care during this time was two to five times that of the Europeans, the study reported.
On the other side of the table, the nation’s hospitals have similarly turned up numbers showing what happens when you have a health care system that doesn’t guarantee protection for everyone. The American Hospital Association recently released its own survey showing that 70 percent of the nation’s hospitals say they are seeing fewer patient visits and elective procedures.
So, too, they are also seeing a spurt in patients signing up for Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Programs. Plus nine out of 10 hospitals, according to the organization, reported an increase in care for which they were not paid.
There’s lots more we need to know. How many lives were needlessly lost for the lack of health insurance? How many lives were stained? Maybe when health care reform finally kicks in, we’ll learn what a price we paid for a time when the economy got terribly sick and so did we.
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Comments
Having been self employed for all except 3 of my adult years, (starting at 19) I often kept working with a migraine, upset stomach, or other physical discomfort.
Part was because when I didn’t work, for whatever reason — sick, holiday, vacation — I made got income. Also, because I had only major medical insurance to reduce premium costs.
I know of several people who looked at their “sick days” as a right to be used.
Somewhere in between there is a balance.
The latest health care plan ignores the huge saving we could get from insurance reform, prevention of unneeded medical attention, unlimited litigation against medical pros and I suppose others savings.
It looks to me like there will be less incentive for expending the time and money to become a doctor under the new “coverage from cradle to grave”. Also it looks like the grave may come sooner as available care goes to those most likely to recover.
They may not be Sarah’s “Death Squads”, but anyone ever in combat knows what I mean.
Dear Stephen Franklin:
Thanks for calling attention to a a vital problem.
We can surely expect to see further declines in health indicators as we wait for Obama’s overly-complex and insurer-subsidizing healthcare plan to finally go into effect several years from now.
First, as Don Peck explains lucidly in his must-read March Atlantic article, a host of disastrous health effects result from protracted unemployment from which we can expect little relief before 2015 at the earliest. We will surely see some deeply-distressing and widespread problems along the way.
We are cursed with combination of Obama’s exclusive reliance on “private-sector” job creation, his refusal to confront corporate off-shoring of US jobs, Democratic congressional spinelessness, and Republican efforts to sabotage the economy for political gain. Thus, no real recovery is possible without a mass upsurge forcing the Democrats to act more boldly.
Second, I recently lost my insurance at age 59 when my wife’s employer, a small social-service agency, could no longer afford the premiums. I’m not eligible for the expanded S-CHIP program in Wisconsin, which in any case has an enormous waiting list.
Similarly, a 61-year-old friend whose restaurant business went bankrupt is also without insurance and little prospect of gaining it before he becomes eligible for Medicare. The ranks of the uninsured seem destined to keep growing, despite ameliorative steps like SCHIP expansion and more funding for community clinics, as Corporate America keeps shedding workers.
In my view, there is no excuse for the long delay between passage of the Obama health bill and its implementation.
In an era before almost-universal use of computers and constant advances in telecommunications, Medicare was up and running 11 months after President Lyndon Johnson signed it into law.
However, even if the Obama reform plan was already installed, it is highly unlikely that I could afford the insurance premiums. The fight for genuine healthcare reform will continue long after Obama’s tragically short-sighted plan goes into effect.
Best, Roger Bybee