“With malice toward none, with charity for all…” spoke Abraham Lincoln at his second inaugural address. While some act as if our health care insurance reform legislation is a disease, a joke, or an onerous burden, a new study puts a deadly face on the consequences of the failure of the U.S. to offer universal health care to its citizens: 45,000 die every year due to a lack of health insurance. This figure has increased about two and a half times since 2002. (In addition the US ranks low internationally in measures such as life expectancy and infant mortality, all at more than twice the average cost.) The authors of the Harvard-based study noted that the U.S. is the only developed nation in the world that doesn’t provide guaranteed health care to its citizens: a subject for serious thought at a time of year when charity and good will receive so many words, if not so much attention.
see: chattahbox.com/us/2009/09/18/study-lack-of-health-insurance-kills-45000-people-annually/ and |
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A national scandal, not involving sex, celebrities, or corruption
45,000 die every year due to a lack of health insurance.