Thousands die each year because they are uninsured or under-insured.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
It's a disgrace that we have millions of people who are uninsured.
When people are left out, we're naturally going to focus on that, if it's 47 million people who don't have health insurance, if it's 23,000 people who die every year because they lack access to health care for something that's easily treatable.
Uninsured people don't just slink off into a corner and die. They seek treatment, but usually when it is an emergency, and this will be the most expensive kind of care available.
We know that 10 million more people will lose insurance in the next 10 years if we don't act.
Uninsured care happens in this country, and here's the problem. It's not properly accounted for. The people who pay for uninsured care at the moment are the hospitals and the doctors and all of the medical providers.
Here's where the insurance companies really fail us. They over-pay hospitals, specialists and drug companies and then raise premiums to cover the costs. Further, when they pay hospitals 115% of what it should cost to care for a patient, they are paying for inefficiency that can be dangerous.
Five to six thousand people die every year waiting for organs, but nobody cares.
One in seven Americans lives without health insurance, and that's a truly staggering figure.
Hospital-acquired infections are now killing more people every year in the United States than die from AIDS or cancer or car accidents combined - about 100,000.
Five thousand people every day lose their home because of a medical bankruptcy. Most of them had insurance.