Lack of Health Insurance Kills – Evidence from Cystic Fibrosis

Not That Conservatives Care

Aaron Carroll presents the results of studies that compared the death rates of individuals with cystic fibrosis in the United States with those with the disease in Canada.  This horrific disease often finds people literally choking to death on their own organ secretions.

“A recent study published in Annals of Internal Medicine used the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Registry and the United States Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Patient Registry to determine how patients fared between 1990 and 2013. Researchers compared the longevity results in the two countries, and controlled for a number of factors, including age, sex, genotype, pancreatic status and more.

Over time, they found, the median life span for patients increased. But it increased faster in Canada. Between 2009 and 2013, the median life span was 40.6 years in the United States versus 50.9 in Canada."

So what might be going on here? Well there is this.

"Compared with patients in the United States who had private insurance coverage, patients in Canada had a similar risk of early death. Compared with patients who had public insurance like Medicaid, Canadians with cystic fibrosis had a 44 percent lower risk of early death. And compared with Americans who were uninsured, Canadians had a 77 percent lower risk of early death.”

A number of factors could be at play. Medications for cystic fibrosis can be expensive, and patients have to take many every day. About 45 percent of American patients with cystic fibrosis receive some form of Medicaid, which can limit the medications patients can get, the providers they can see and the therapies that are covered. For the uninsured, it can be even worse. Insurance, as well as the cost of care, remains a significant concern for people with cystic fibrosis."

Yes, studies like these cannot isolate all of the variables.  So this evidence, not proof. But it is pretty strong evidence and one wonders what the ‘holier than thou’ Speaker of the House Paul Ryan would say.  Well he probably would not say anything cause he don’t need fact based policy, his is faith based policy.  But if he were aware of the info he would probably rejoice for those uninsured who were able to exercise their God given freedom to die earlier than they had to.

Pro life, he ain't.