Americans dying of "failed health system," docs say

When Nikki White died at the age of 32, her doctor boldly stated that the young woman didn’t die of lupus but of “complications of a failing health care system.”

The young woman – an aspiring doctor – had lost her health insurance, and failed to seek help until her autoimmune disease had advanced too far for physicians to save her.

American doctors are speaking out like never before, saying their patients are dying needlessly because the private insurance system and the safety-net government plans still fail to cover some 46 million people.

Tonight, Frontline presents “Sick Around America” at 9 p.m. on Rocky Mountain PBS, KRMA-Channel 6. It is an argument for a fundamental overhaul of the system that, producers say, leaves tens of millions of Americans uninsured, and several million more underinsured and at the risk of bankruptcy if they get seriously sick.

The Institute of Medicine estimates that 18,000 Americans died needlessly last year because they weren’t insured or were underinsured.

Colorado isn’t immune, says Lorez Meinhold, senior program officer for policy at the non-profit Colorado Health Foundation.

“We know that people who are uninsured or underinsured tend to postpone needed medical care, and that leads to more illness and more costly care,” Meinhold said.

Applying national data from the Urban Institute to Colorado, Meinhold estimates that for every 1 percent rise in unemployment here, 19,000 adults and 1,000 kids lose health insurance.

The Chamber of Commerce estimates that the average Colorado family with private health coverage pays an additional $900 in premiums to cover the cost of care for the uninsured.

The Colorado Health Foundation hopes a public-private partnership can emerge to cover the state’s 800,000 uninsured, because, its officers say, private industry is not getting the job done.

Medicaid covers 400,000 very low income Coloradans, with administrative costs hovering around 4 percent, Meinhold said.

Private industry’s so-called “small group” market, by contrast, charges premiums or deductibles that total about $12,000 a year, and administrative costs run from 10 percent to 20 percent.

The key to saving money is to lump all those people who can’t get insurance — either because they can’t afford it or because their maladies scare companies away — into one or two very large pools to lower the risk, Meinhold said.

Even then, the cost will be too much for the hundreds of thousands of Coloradans who live in households that earn between, say, $15,000 and $45,000 a year.

So, government will have to subsidize the premiums paid to private insurers.

Better that, though, than continue to suffer the consequences of early deaths, delayed care and the extra costs that are shared by all, say advocates for an expanded system of health care.

The choices offered to low-income Colororadans have to include more than just a high-deductible plan that requires them to pay out of pocket for, say, the first $5,000 in costs, Meinhold said.

Coloradans won’t pay a third of their take-home pay for health coverage, not if they can make the emergency room their doctor’s office, and pass the cost on to other taxpayers.

State lawmakers on Thursday will first consider a plan to subsidize the health premiums for Coloradans who fall into the gap — they earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but still can’t afford private plans.

Georgetown University Professor Karen Politz compares America’s current health-care system to “having an airbag in your car that’s made out of tissue paper.”

“I’m so glad it’s there, but if I ever get in a crash, it’s not going to protect me.”