45,000 Excess Deaths Annually Linked To Lack Of Health Insurance

Harvard study:

A study published online today [Thursday] estimates nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance. That figure is about two and a half times higher than an estimate from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2002.

The new study, "Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults," appears in today's [Thursday's] online edition of the American Journal of Public Health.

The Harvard-based researchers found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts, up from a 25 percent excess death rate found in 1993.

Lead author Dr. Andrew Wilper, who worked at Harvard Medical School when the study was done and who now teaches at the University of Washington Medical School, said, "The uninsured have a higher risk of death when compared to the privately insured, even after taking into account socioeconomics, health behaviors and baseline health. We doctors have many new ways to prevent deaths from hypertension, diabetes and heart disease -- but only if patients can get into our offices and afford their medications."

The study, which analyzed data from national surveys carried out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), assessed death rates after taking education, income and many other factors including smoking, drinking and obesity into account. It estimated that lack of health insurance causes 44,789 excess deaths annually.

Bin Laden killed 3,000 people on 9/11. Lack of health insurance kills fifteen times that number every year.

It's easy to forget what we're fighting for with all the ranting and raving and lying going on. This isn't about soaking the rich or getting votes or growing government or turning the country into a socialist utopia; it's about saving a lot of lives and improving the quality of life for a lot more people.

Let's try to remember that.

(HT: Andrew Sullivan.)

Itzhack Perlman on Gay Marriage

When it's your kid they're talking about or someone else you know and love, the answer is obvious. If live in a community where gay people have to stay in the closet until they leave (I'm looking at you, Orthodox Judaism and Mormonism) maybe it's not so obvious.

What if there were no God? Politically conservative and liberal Christians imagine their lives without faith

Interesting:

A sample of devout Christian adults, ranging widely in political orientation, described what their lives (and the world) might be like had they never embraced faith. Politically conservative Christians (also scoring high on right-wing authoritarianism) tended to imagine a life deficient in impulse control, wherein unrestrained sexual and aggressive urges, addictive behaviors, and human selfishness undermined the social good. By contrast, politically liberal Christians (also scoring low on right-wing authoritarianism) imagined an empty and barren world, devoid of the emotional intensity that makes life worth living. Gender differences were also observed, but they did not interfere with the relation between political orientation and the narrative themes. In accord with theoretical writings regarding normative and humanistic ideologies, the findings suggest that, at least among American Christians, political conservatism may entail a fear of, or strong sensitivity to, the prospects of conflict and chaos, whereas political liberalism may entail an equally strong fear of, or sensitivity to, emptiness.

Via Razib.

I've noticed the conservative fear of an anything-goes world without God, but I'd never associated a fear of an empty, meaningless world with liberals in particular.

It does seem to fit nicely into George Lakoff's model (YouTube) of the two parental metaphors that underlie conservatism and liberalism in America: that of the strict-father family and the nurturant-parent family. Take away the strict father for conservatives and we're Sodom and Gomorrah. Take away the nurturant parent for liberals and we're at a loss for what we should do.

Happy Loving Day!

40 years ago today, the Supreme Court ruled that Virginia's anti-miscegenation statutes were unconstitutional.

Let me repeat that. 40 years ago, it was against the law in many states for a white person to marry a black one.

Let us hope that one day soon, laws against gay marriage go the same way. I have no doubt that our children and grandchildren will look at today's laws against gay marriage with the same horror and disbelief that most of us now feel about the anti-miscegenation laws.

[T]here is a striking similarity between the arguments used to justify anti-miscegenation laws and the arguments put forward today against gay marriage. Tradition, a respect for majority opinion, religion, science, sociology -- all were invoked with great somberness and much citation of experts and their research. The prejudice that propped up all the arguments -- and, for us, invalidates them -- was invisible or inevitable to their proponents.

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents, their sentencing judge decreed. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix. --Fred Hiatt

You opponents of gay marriage, I beg of you to consider your position in light of the positions of people opposed to interracial marriage just a single generation ago. How was it possible that so many American citizens believed then what seems to be a gravely immoral position today? What questions have you asked yourself to ensure you aren't making a similar mistake today?