[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

I posted the links. There have been studies that analyze the mortality rates of insured vs. uninsured. Based on these rates (and eliminating other factors), at least 18,000 Americans die each year due to lack of health insurance.

http://cougarguard.com/forum/showpos...2&postcount=36

http://cougarguard.com/forum/showpos...3&postcount=37

They only stratified the study by age? No freaking wonder they got higher mortality rates for the uninsured. Mortality goes up as income goes down. You could try to fool yourself by thinking it's primarily due to lack of access to health insurance, but it's more closely tied to thing such as (not ordered by importance)

1. Higher homicide rate
2. Higher substance abuse (alcohol, drugs, smoking, etc.)
3. Poorer nutrition, exercise

http://cougarguard.com/forum/showpos...2&postcount=36

http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/411...ured_dying.pdf

Since a higher percentage of uninsured are poor, unless you stratify your sample by household income, you are going to get some seriously skewed results.