Mortality risk likely to be higher among uninsured patients

With the Congressional Budget Office report indicating that 22 million Americans will lose insurance coverage by 2026 under the Senate’s proposed Better Care Reconciliation Act, a recent study published in Annals of Internal Medicine shows that a lack of insurance is associated with increased mortality.In this study, Steffie Woolhandler, MD, MPH, and David U. Himmelstein, MD, from City University of New York School of Urban Public Health at Hunter College and Harvard Medical School, summarized the current evidence relating to the connection between insurance and mortality. Currently, approximately 28 million people in the United States are uninsured, and the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will cause millions more to loss coverage. In the face of these legislative changes, some policy leaders are advocating for a single-payer national health insurance system that would provide every American with insurance coverage.