PNHP

Uninsured veterans

Over 2,200 veterans died in 2008 due to lack of health insurance

Physicians for a National Health Program
Press Release
November 10, 2009
A research team at Harvard Medical School estimates 2,266 U.S. military veterans under the age of 65 died last year because they lacked health insurance and thus had reduced access to care. That figure is more than 14 times the number of deaths (155) suffered by U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2008, and more than twice as many as have died (911 as of Oct. 31) since the war began in 2001.
The Harvard group analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s March 2009 Current Population Survey, which surveyed Americans about their insurance coverage and veteran status, and found that 1,461,615 veterans between the ages of 18 and 64 were uninsured in 2008. Veterans were only classified as uninsured if they neither had health insurance nor received ongoing care at Veterans Health Administration (VA) hospitals or clinics.
“Like other uninsured Americans, most uninsured vets are working people – too poor to afford private coverage but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid or means-tested VA care,” said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a professor at Harvard Medical School. While many Americans believe that all veterans can get care from the VA, even combat veterans may not be able to obtain VA care, Woolhandler said.
Dr. David Himmelstein, the co-author of the analysis and associate professor of medicine at Harvard, commented, “On this Veterans Day we should not only honor the nearly 500 soldiers who have died this year in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the more than 2,200 veterans who were killed by our broken health insurance system.”
https://pnhp.org/news/2009/november/over_2200_veterans_.php

And…

A Word, Mr. President

By Bob Herbert
The New York Times
November 9, 2009
Reforming the chaotic and unfair health care system in the U.S. is an important issue. But in terms of pressing national priorities, the most important are the need to find solutions to a catastrophic employment environment that is devastating American families and to end the folly of an 8-year-old war that is both extremely debilitating and ultimately unwinnable.
If you were to take a walk around one of the many military medical centers, like Landstuhl in Germany or Walter Reed in Washington, your heart would break at the sight of the heroic young men and women who have lost limbs (frequently more than one) or who are blind or paralyzed or horribly burned. Hundreds of thousands have suffered psychological wounds. Many have contemplated or tried suicide, and far too many have succeeded.
“Mr. President,” I would say, “we’ll never be right as a nation as long as we allow this to continue.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/opinion/10herbert.html?hp

How can we continue to support a fragmented, dysfunctional financing system that allows some of our veterans (not to mention tens of thousands of others of us) to die merely because we have placed a higher priority on nurturing the private insurance industry than we have on improving access for everyone through a more effective health care financing system? Our veterans. How can we let them down like this?
On a personal note, Veterans Day has always been a difficult day for me. In August of 1964, when I was driving from California to Texas to report for duty as an Army medical officer, we heard on the radio that our close friend, Dick Sather, was the Navy pilot who was just shot down and killed in the Gulf of Tonkin incident. (The other pilot shot down, Everett Alvarez, was held captive for over eight years.)
I was already a pacifist, but strictly on an ethical and not a religious basis. I believe, like so many others, that war is not healthy for children and other living things. The very worst possible way to negotiate international disagreements is to engage in war. And yet the United States does it over and over again. The school yard excuse, “but they started it,” doesn’t even seem to apply anymore.
After medical officer basic training in San Antonio, my first assignment to season me before being sent overseas, was as a battalion surgeon in Fort Hood, Texas. Yes, that Fort Hood.
Now you understand why I seem to be off message – the combination of my Veterans Day grief, the tragic slaughter that just occurred at my former military base, and now this new report on the unnecessary deaths of so many veterans due to a broken health insurance system.
Veterans Day is a day to think about the impact on not just our veterans but all of us, of record unemployment, war, and the unfair health care system that Bob Herbert writes about. We can fix all of them.
So what are we doing? More government money for Wall Street, and less for jobs. More troops for the war in Afghanistan, instead of withdrawal. More money for private insurers, while health care becomes ever less affordable for patients.
Is this what our veterans were fighting for?

Uninsured veterans

Over 2,200 veterans died in 2008 due to lack of health insurance

Physicians for a National Health Program
Press Release
November 10, 2009

A research team at Harvard Medical School estimates 2,266 U.S. military veterans under the age of 65 died last year because they lacked health insurance and thus had reduced access to care. That figure is more than 14 times the number of deaths (155) suffered by U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2008, and more than twice as many as have died (911 as of Oct. 31) since the war began in 2001.

The Harvard group analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s March 2009 Current Population Survey, which surveyed Americans about their insurance coverage and veteran status, and found that 1,461,615 veterans between the ages of 18 and 64 were uninsured in 2008. Veterans were only classified as uninsured if they neither had health insurance nor received ongoing care at Veterans Health Administration (VA) hospitals or clinics.

“Like other uninsured Americans, most uninsured vets are working people – too poor to afford private coverage but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid or means-tested VA care,” said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a professor at Harvard Medical School. While many Americans believe that all veterans can get care from the VA, even combat veterans may not be able to obtain VA care, Woolhandler said.

Dr. David Himmelstein, the co-author of the analysis and associate professor of medicine at Harvard, commented, “On this Veterans Day we should not only honor the nearly 500 soldiers who have died this year in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the more than 2,200 veterans who were killed by our broken health insurance system.”

https://pnhp.org/news/2009/november/over_2200_veterans_.php

And…

A Word, Mr. President

By Bob Herbert
The New York Times
November 9, 2009

Reforming the chaotic and unfair health care system in the U.S. is an important issue. But in terms of pressing national priorities, the most important are the need to find solutions to a catastrophic employment environment that is devastating American families and to end the folly of an 8-year-old war that is both extremely debilitating and ultimately unwinnable.

If you were to take a walk around one of the many military medical centers, like Landstuhl in Germany or Walter Reed in Washington, your heart would break at the sight of the heroic young men and women who have lost limbs (frequently more than one) or who are blind or paralyzed or horribly burned. Hundreds of thousands have suffered psychological wounds. Many have contemplated or tried suicide, and far too many have succeeded.

“Mr. President,” I would say, “we’ll never be right as a nation as long as we allow this to continue.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/opinion/10herbert.html?hp

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

How can we continue to support a fragmented, dysfunctional financing system that allows some of our veterans (not to mention tens of thousands of others of us) to die merely because we have placed a higher priority on nurturing the private insurance industry than we have on improving access for everyone through a more effective health care financing system? Our veterans. How can we let them down like this?

On a personal note, Veterans Day has always been a difficult day for me. In August of 1964, when I was driving from California to Texas to report for duty as an Army medical officer, we heard on the radio that our close friend, Dick Sather, was the Navy pilot who was just shot down and killed in the Gulf of Tonkin incident. (The other pilot shot down, Everett Alvarez, was held captive for over eight years.)

I was already a pacifist, but strictly on an ethical and not a religious basis. I believe, like so many others, that war is not healthy for children and other living things. The very worst possible way to negotiate international disagreements is to engage in war. And yet the United States does it over and over again. The school yard excuse, “but they started it,” doesn’t even seem to apply anymore.

After medical officer basic training in San Antonio, my first assignment to season me before being sent overseas, was as a battalion surgeon in Fort Hood, Texas. Yes, that Fort Hood.

Now you understand why I seem to be off message – the combination of my Veterans Day grief, the tragic slaughter that just occurred at my former military base, and now this new report on the unnecessary deaths of so many veterans due to a broken health insurance system.

Veterans Day is a day to think about the impact on not just our veterans but all of us, of record unemployment, war, and the unfair health care system that Bob Herbert writes about. We can fix all of them.

So what are we doing? More government money for Wall Street, and less for jobs. More troops for the war in Afghanistan, instead of withdrawal. More money for private insurers, while health care becomes ever less affordable for patients.

Is this what our veterans were fighting for?