Title: Desperate Inequality, Disparate Health
1Desperate Inequality,Disparate Health
- Jeff Singer
- Health Care for the Homeless
- June 8, 2004
2Of all forms of inequality, injustice in health
care isthe most shocking and inhumane.  The
Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
3African Americans and Health, Joint Center
DataBank Briefs, www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cas
t/uploaded_files/052504_jc_disparities_healthbrief
.pdf
4Death and Homelessness
- Homeless women 1844 years of age were 10 times
more likely to die than women in the general
population. - Angela M. Cheung and Stephen W. Hwang
http//www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/170/8/1243 - The death rate among homeless men was more than
five times the rate in the general population. - Stephen W. Hwang JAMA. 20002832152-2157
5Health Injustice
6Incomes and Health
- The poor suffer rates of death and disease 50
higher than others. - Lantz, et.al., Socioeconomic factors, health
behaviors, and mortality, JAMA, 1998 June
3279(21) 1703-1708
7Incomes and Health
While the richest 1 of the U.S. population saw
its financial wealth grow 109 from 1983 to 2001,
the bottom 40 watched its wealth fall 46.
The Congressional Budget Office, Historical
Effective Tax Rates, 1979-1997, Preliminary
Edition, May 2001. http//www.cbo.gov/ftpdoc.cfm?i
ndex2838type1
8Incomes and Health
- Every 1 decline in economic inequality is
accompanied by a 1 decline in mortality rates. - Kennedy, Kawachi, and Prothrow-Stith, Income
distribution and mortality test of the Robin
Hood Index in the United States. British Medical
Journal Vol. 312 (April 20, 1996), pgs. 1004-1007
9Poverty Rate by Race/Ethnicity, 2002
U.S. Census Bureau, Poverty in the United States
2002, P60-222, Tables1 and 2.
10Insurance and Health
- Uninsured children and adults are sicker and die
more often, as cancer and other diseases are
diagnosed too late. - Uninsured persons injured in an automobile
accident get less services in hospitals and have
a 37 higher death rate than those with health
coverage. - Lack of health insurance causes 18,000
unnecessary deaths every year in the U.S.
Insuring America's Health Principles and
Recommendations , Institute of Medicine, 1/14/2004
11One out of Seven
- 43.6 million Americans had no health insurance in
2002 - This represents approximately one out of seven of
our neighbors.
Health Insurance Coverage in the United States
2002. , U.S. Bureau of the Census, 9/30/2003
1218,314 Adult Deaths Annually Due to Uninsurance
13Health Insurance by Income and Housing Status
14Health Insurance and Poverty
- 30.7 of the poor were uninsured in 2001
- 30.4 of the poor were uninsured in 2002
- http//www.census.gov/hhes/hlthins/hlthin02/
15Rate of Nonelderly Uninsured by Race/Ethnicity,
1999-2000
Kaiser Family Foundation, Health Insurance
Coverage in America, 2002 Update
16Legislative Vehicle Health Care Access Campaign
- Health Care Access Resolution
- (H. Con Res. 99)
- 79 co-sponsors from 27 States as of 4/21/04
17Universal Solutions Health Care Access Campaign
- Resolved by the House of Representatives (the
Senate concurring), that the Congress shall enact
legislation by October 2005 to guarantee that
every person in the United States, regardless of
income, age, or employment or health status, has
access to health care - Information www.uhcan.org
18U.S. National Health Insurance Act HR676
- Proposal of the Physicians' Working Group for
Single-Payer National Health Insurance published
in the Journal of the American Medical
Association on 8/13/03, endorsed by gt 8,000
physicians - Introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) on 2/11/03
with 33 co-sponsors
19HR676 Features
- Access to comprehensive health care is a human
right. - The right to choose and change one's physician is
fundamental to patient autonomy. - Pursuit of corporate profit and personal fortune
have no place in caregiving and they create
enormous waste. - In a democracy, the public should set overall
health policies. Personal medical decisions must
be made by patients not by corporate or
government bureaucrats -
20Single Payer Superiority
- According to U.S. Congress' General Accounting
Office, administrative savings from a single
payer reform would total about 10 of overall
health spending. These administrative savings,
about 100 billion annually, are enough to cover
all of the uninsured, and virtually eliminate
co-payments, deductibles and exclusions for those
who now have inadequate plans - without any
increase in total health spending. - www.pnhp.org/hcinfo/?gowhy_needed
21Single Payer Superiority
- The single payer model would cover all Vermont
residents, including the estimated 51,390
uninsured persons in the state, while actually
reducing total health spending in Vermont by
about 118.1 million in 2001 (i.e., five
percent). - These savings are attributed primarily to the
lower cost of administering coverage through a
single government program with uniform coverage
and payment rules." - Analysis of the Costs and Impact of Universal
Health - Care Coverage Under a Single Payer Model for the
State of - Vermont, Office of Vermont Health Access August
28, 2001
22(No Transcript)