Death certificate reads: Uninsured

Health care reform is a life and death struggle, and apparently it is urgent that everyone gets insurance right now. Which makes one wonder why it does not take effect for four years.

On the floor of the Senate, Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry Reid explained the urgency:

“Much of our attention this year has been consumed by this health care debate.  And a Harvard study found that 45,000 times this year — nearly 900 times every week, more than 120 times a day, on average every 10 minutes, without end — an American died as a direct result of not having health insurance."

Yes, that is what the Harvard study said.

But it does not take long to find someone to challenge that conclusion and the motives of its authors.

Steve Milloy, publisher of Junkscience.com, was quoted in the Washington Times in September saying the Harvard study is junk science.
 
"They are trying to create these factoids that they can beat opponents over the head with," Milloy said. "They interviewed 9,000 people between 1988 and 1994 and asked, 'Do you have health insurance?' and if you die at some point in the future, they assume your death was caused by the fact you didn’t have insurance during that time you were interviewed.

"That kind of stuff is classic junk science."

The story goes on to say that the Congressional Budget Office found low-income people without insurance had a 3 percent higher chance of death, but found no difference among higher income earners.

The Times story also notes, "One of the study’s co-authors, Dr. David Himmelstein, is a strong proponent of a single-payer system. In addition to working as associate professor of medicine at Harvard University, Dr. Himmelstein is also founder and spokesman for Physicians for a National Health Program."

Let's see. An estimated 2.4 million Americans die each year. If 45,000 died because of a lack of insurance, that's less than 2 percent. Care to apply a chi square test to that?