2 die each day in Mich. for lack of insurance

By PATRICIA ANSTETT • FREE PRESS MEDICAL WRITER • March 13, 2008 Not having health insurance can be deadly, a growing problem that accounts for deaths of 650 Michiganders a year, nearly two a day, a national report released Thursday concludes. Uninsured people "live sicker and die earlier," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a national nonprofit consumer health organization, speaking in a telephone news briefing. He said that premature deaths among the uninsured nationwide are twice the rates of people who are killed by homicide. The problem is growing in Michigan as more employers drop health coverage and people find insurance premiums too costly to purchase their own coverage. The report used mathematical methods used by two highly reputable agencies, the Institute of Medicine, a nonprofit federal agency which studied the issue in 2002, and the Urban Institute, which updated the figures in 2006. Both reports took federal statistics on people who lacked insurance and estimated that 25% died prematurely. The problem is largely unrecognized, said Sister Mary Ellen Howard, director of the Cabrini Clinic, a free clinic in Detroit that is the nation's oldest such center in the United States. "You will never read that this person died because they are uninsured," she said. The cause of death will be listed as stroke or cancer, for example, she said. "It won't say this person didn't have screening for cancer, was diagnosed late and not treated appropriately because she was uninsured." Howard said legislation pending in Lansing to allow Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan to set its own rates without prior approval from the state's Office of Financial and Insurance Services would make problems worse by extending from six months to 12 months the time in which the insurer can choose not to enroll people with chronic health problems, as commercial insurers can. "I'm afraid that in 12 months many people will die because they don't have insurance," she said. "We have to protect them even more." Blue Cross is seeking the changes to offset losses from its individual policies and to allow more flexibility in their pricing from year to year, rather than seeking prior state approval, a time-consuming process. Rep. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., called the report "a wakeup call for all of us, that we have got to make a commitment to universal health care coverage and access in this country." Contact PATRICIA ANSTETT at 313-222-5021 or panstett@freepress.com.