No Health Insurance? It’s Enough to Make You Sick, verified, with scientific evidence, 1 that the uninsured experience reduced access to health care. Uninsured Americans are 2 less likely to have a regular source of care, to have had a recent physician visit, and to use 3 preventive services. They are more likely to delay seeking care and to report not 4 receiving needed care.
As a general internist Edition who is working in a federally qualified కమ్యూనిటీ క్లినిక్ Community clinic in west Texas, I can vouch for every word of the above paragraph
More specifically, uninsured working-age adults are more likely to go without
care that meets professionally recommended standards for managing chronic diseases,
such as timely eye exams to prevent blindness in persons with diabetes, and they oftentimes lack regular access to medications needed to manage conditions like hypertension or HIV. The uninsured are also more likely to receive less frequent or no cancer screening, resulting in delayed diagnosis, delayed treatment, and premature mortality. For uninsured Americans, particularly those with chronic conditions, lack of access to needed care results in more medical crises and emergency hospitalizations.
In the end, failing to extend health care coverage to the uninsured compromises access to care, results in the inefficient use of medical services, and ultimately carries multiple economic consequences. On the one hand, there are direct costs borne by the health care system for treating the uninsured, which must be absorbed by providers as free care, passed on to the insured via cost shifting and higher health insurance premiums, or paid by taxpayers through higher taxes to finance public hospitals and public insurance programs. (4) But there are also indirect costs to individuals and families, in terms of financial security and well-being; to businesses, realized through employee health, attendance, and productivity; and to society at large, in terms of public health and general productivity.
No comments:
Post a Comment