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Universal Health Care could have saved more than 330,000 U.S. lives during COVID


Eldorado

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A new study quantifies the severity of the impact of the pandemic on Americans who did not have access to health insurance.

According to findings published on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, from the pandemic’s beginning until mid-March 2022, universal health care could have saved more than 338,000 lives from COVID-19 alone.

The U.S. also could have saved $105.6 billion in health care costs associated with hospitalizations from the disease—on top of the estimated $438 billion that could be saved in a nonpandemic year.

“Health care reform is long overdue in the U.S.,” says the study’s lead author Alison Galvani, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis at the Yale School of Public Health. “Americans are needlessly losing lives and money.”

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/universal-health-care-could-have-saved-more-than-330-000-u-s-lives-during-covid/

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14 minutes ago, Eldorado said:

A new study quantifies the severity of the impact of the pandemic on Americans who did not have access to health insurance.

According to findings published on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, from the pandemic’s beginning until mid-March 2022, universal health care could have saved more than 338,000 lives from COVID-19 alone.

The U.S. also could have saved $105.6 billion in health care costs associated with hospitalizations from the disease—on top of the estimated $438 billion that could be saved in a nonpandemic year.

“Health care reform is long overdue in the U.S.,” says the study’s lead author Alison Galvani, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis at the Yale School of Public Health. “Americans are needlessly losing lives and money.”

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/universal-health-care-could-have-saved-more-than-330-000-u-s-lives-during-covid/

Wait, are you saying that with  the Un"affordable care act" there are still people in the U.S. that do not have health insurance?   A huge problem in the state I live in is a lack of doctors, nurses and hospitals.   Even if you have health insurance here, it takes months to be able to see a doctor.  There are Urgent care facilities all over but you never get to see a doctor, maybe a Nurse Practitioner, and they are limited on what they can do.   For example, my 89 year old aunt, who came to live with me in January could not be seen at an urgent care facility because of her age.   The soonest I could get her in to see a doctor is July 1st.  We are counting down the days now, finally.  Luckily she doesn't have any known dire medical issues.   

This article you posted is pie in the sky.   I agree that universal health care would save a lot of lives, with or without a pandemic, as long as the insurance companies are not invovled.   The reason we still do not have affordable health care is because of the insurance companies and pharmacuetical companies.

Edited by Desertrat56
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4 minutes ago, Desertrat56 said:

Wait, are you saying that with  the UN"affordable care act" there are still people in the U.S. that do not have health insurance?

In the first half of 2021, approximately 31.1 million people in the United States had no health insurance. The share of Americans without health insurance was steadily decreasing until 2015, but has been increasing since 2017. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 caused this change, because it repealed the individual mandate, which penalized individuals for failing to maintain health coverage.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/200955/americans-without-health-insurance/

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3 minutes ago, Eldorado said:

In the first half of 2021, approximately 31.1 million people in the United States had no health insurance. The share of Americans without health insurance was steadily decreasing until 2015, but has been increasing since 2017. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 caused this change, because it repealed the individual mandate, which penalized individuals for failing to maintain health coverage.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/200955/americans-without-health-insurance/

Yes, my question was fecetious.   That unaffordable "care act" did nothing to help people who can't afford insurance.  The only way it helped is that some states boosted their medicaid programs, while others changed theirs to make it harder to get medicaid.   And the insurance companies raised their rates so high that people who could afford insurance before can no longer afford it.

Edited by Desertrat56
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Ah, good.  Another Troll Feeders Paradise Thread... just what we needed.

conjecture, assumption, bias projection, highly charged emotional anchors... it's got it all!

 

Enjoy!

Edited by quiXilver
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4 hours ago, Desertrat56 said:

Wait, are you saying that with  the Un"affordable care act" there are still people in the U.S. that do not have health insurance?   A huge problem in the state I live in is a lack of doctors, nurses and hospitals.   Even if you have health insurance here, it takes months to be able to see a doctor.  There are Urgent care facilities all over but you never get to see a doctor, maybe a Nurse Practitioner, and they are limited on what they can do.   For example, my 89 year old aunt, who came to live with me in January could not be seen at an urgent care facility because of her age.   The soonest I could get her in to see a doctor is July 1st.  We are counting down the days now, finally.  Luckily she doesn't have any known dire medical issues.   

This article you posted is pie in the sky.   I agree that universal health care would save a lot of lives, with or without a pandemic, as long as the insurance companies are not invovled.   The reason we still do not have affordable health care is because of the insurance companies and pharmacuetical companies.

The US could just overrule the insurance companies and pharmacuetical companies, and impose unversal healthcare free at the point of need. The UK did it in 1948 despite major opposition from doctors, insurance companies and other vested interests. Now, the NHS is not the best healthcare provider in Europe, and is less well funded that of many European countries, but it is one of our most cherished institutions. Not just Europe, but many countries less wealthy follow the same model. It has so many advantages- you can have an accident (Eldorado mentioned on in a recent thread where a fell walker suffered hypothermia)- you get immediate first response treatment, air-lift or ambulance to hospital if neccessary, specialist medicine and surgery, and rehab- and no one gives you a bill. Or you can develope a chronic illness like diabetes or MS- you get good treatment and again no bill.

It wasn't introduced through altruism- if a country wants to be successful and productive, it's population must be cared for. In fact, wars have driven some the UK's social reforms- when there is a general mobilisation you want new recruits to be healthy - in the early 20th century conscription was hampered by the fact that prospective soldiers were suffering from physical conditions caused by poor health and social problems.

We all pay for it through national insurance, but because everyone pays, it is relatively painless. 

I really don't understand why the US does not go for it. 

Edited by The Silver Shroud
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6 minutes ago, The Silver Shroud said:

The US could just overrule the insurance companies and pharmacuetical companies, and impose unversal healthcare free at the point of need. The UK did it in 1948 despite major opposition from doctors, insurance companies and other vested interests. Now, the NHS is not the best healthcare provide in Europe, and is less well funded that of many European countries, but it is one of our most cherished institutions. Not just Europe, but many countries less wealthy follow the same model. It has so many advantages- you can have an accident (Eldorado mentioned on in a recent thread where a fell walker suffered hypothermia)- you get immediate first response treatment, air-lift or ambulance to hospital if neccessary, specialist medicine and surgery, and rehab- and no one gives you a bill. Or you can develope a chronic illness like diabetes or MS- you get good treatment and again no bill.

It wasn't introduced through altruism- if a country wants to be successful and productive, it's population must be cared for. In fact, wars have driven some the UK's social reforms- when there is a general mobilisation you want new recruits to be healthy - in the early 20th century conscription was hampered by the fact that prospective soldiers were suffering from physical conditions caused by poor health and social problems.

We all pay for it through national insurance, but because everyone pays, it is relatively painless. 

I really don't understand why the US does not go for it. 

Sure they could, so why don't you come over here and tell that to our Representatives and Senators who were elected by insurance company and pharmacuetical money and the people who run their for profit hospitals and doctors practices.  You don't know how our system works.  It is not like your system.   You live in a socialist democracy, we live in a capitalist democracy.   I think you all should get a clue and quit telling us what we can do, when you have no clue how things work here.

Edited by Desertrat56
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7 minutes ago, Desertrat56 said:

Sure they could, so why don't you come over here and tell that to our Representatives and Senators who were elected by insurance company and pharmacuetical money and the people who run their for profit hospitals and doctors practices.  You don't know how our system works.  It is not like your system.   You live in a socialist democracy, we live in a capitalist democracy.   I think you all should get a clue and quit telling us what we can do, when you have no clue how things work here.

The UK is not socialist, it is capitalist through and through, like the rest of Europe. Royal families, landed gentry, aristocracy, corruption- we had (and still have) major inequality in Europe. I think it was the suffering imposed by WW2- just 20 years after WW1, the population who had said goodbye to their husbands and brothers then said goodbye to their sons- people had had enough. Churchill was ousted, even though he was admired, and they wanted a new, fairer, society. 

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13 minutes ago, The Silver Shroud said:

The UK is not socialist, it is capitalist through and through, like the rest of Europe. Royal families, landed gentry, aristocracy, corruption- we had (and still have) major inequality in Europe. I think it was the suffering imposed by WW2- just 20 years after WW1, the population who had said goodbye to their husbands and brothers then said goodbye to their sons- people had had enough. Churchill was ousted, even though he was admired, and they wanted a new, fairer, society. 

A new, fairer society is a socialist society.   Maybe some day we will burn all the corporate buildings and get rid of the bought and paid for representatives, enact term limits and elect people who understood why our government was designed the way it was, with the expectation that politics is not a career, and representatives commit to a  short term obligation, then go home to their real lives as intended originally.

Edited by Desertrat56
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15 hours ago, quiXilver said:

Ah, good.  Another Troll Feeders Paradise Thread... just what we needed.

conjecture, assumption, bias projection, highly charged emotional anchors... it's got it all!

 

Enjoy!

Not all just yet...here ill add,

Did anyone come up with an estimate of how many lives were lost due to trumps totally and completely incompetent and utter failure in his disastrous response to covid.

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10 hours ago, the13bats said:

Not all just yet...here ill add,

Did anyone come up with an estimate of how many lives were lost due to trumps totally and completely incompetent and utter failure in his disastrous response to covid.

That would be hard to estimate.  Probably you would have to start with the Navajo Nation who asked for testing kits and got body bags, but that wasn't Trump, he probably never knew anything about it, that was the National Health Service or what ever agency is supposed to handle that sort of thing.   Yes, Trump said a lot of stupid things, and promoted a lot of misinformation, denigrated the CDC, etc, but he was not really the shot caller, there were others who were in charge of that and once again, the president gets blamed for what Congress does or doesn't do.   I am not defending Trump, just adding my perspective on why your question is impossible to answer.

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No matter if each and every American had been insured during the pandemic, it would not have helped with the main issue of the pandemic: Hospital capacity.

BS report. Political propaganda. (And I'm pro free health care!)

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6 minutes ago, zep73 said:

No matter if each and every American had been insured during the pandemic, it would not have helped with the main issue of the pandemic: Hospital capacity.

BS report. Political propaganda. (And I'm pro free health care!)

Especially since in 2018 & 2019 some hospitals had been closed that served rural areas.

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7 hours ago, Desertrat56 said:

That would be hard to estimate.  Probably you would have to start with the Navajo Nation who asked for testing kits and got body bags, but that wasn't Trump, he probably never knew anything about it, that was the National Health Service or what ever agency is supposed to handle that sort of thing.   Yes, Trump said a lot of stupid things, and promoted a lot of misinformation, denigrated the CDC, etc, but he was not really the shot caller, there were others who were in charge of that and once again, the president gets blamed for what Congress does or doesn't do.   I am not defending Trump, just adding my perspective on why your question is impossible to answer.

In my way of thinking you did defend trump by doing as he does and blames others.

My question wasnt about others it was about trump.

I truly believe trump the potus at the time cost lives with his bumblingly incompetence did others cost lives too? Sure, but trump was potus, the country and its peoole were in his little hands and he had butter fingers.

Whats worse i believe trump cost lives for his own personal and political reasons.

And thats my perspective.

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8 hours ago, the13bats said:

In my way of thinking you did defend trump by doing as he does and blames others.

My question wasnt about others it was about trump.

I truly believe trump the potus at the time cost lives with his bumblingly incompetence did others cost lives too? Sure, but trump was potus, the country and its peoole were in his little hands and he had butter fingers.

Whats worse i believe trump cost lives for his own personal and political reasons.

And thats my perspective.

TDS raging?   While Trump did not do a great job, he was also blocked in every way by the anti Trump folks.   I remember the media calling him racist for wanting to prohibit flights from China.   That would have helped slow the spread.  

A large part of the Democrats also refused to get vaccinated.  That helped spread the virus.   

Lots of blame to go around.

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11 minutes ago, Myles said:

TDS raging?   While Trump did not do a great job, he was also blocked in every way by the anti Trump folks.   I remember the media calling him racist for wanting to prohibit flights from China.   That would have helped slow the spread.  

A large part of the Democrats also refused to get vaccinated.  That helped spread the virus.   

Lots of blame to go around.

The only deranged folks are of course trump and his handful of worshippers who still cant face the fact he failed bigly.

You do realize perhaps you dont you are acting like trump himself, he would be proud his dad taught him to do whatever it took not to loose not to accept failure or blame and like with trump for example his crying about unproven stolen elections, a sore loser man child in delusinal melt down, he made himself look riduculous not just to people like myself who think both sides are clowns but in this case trump lost reelection because America both sides were done with his buffooning even the gop are over him i cant count how many people who voted trump that first time stressed great regret in doing so.

Sure there is a lot of blame to go around but trump was the leader of the country he took on that great responsibility and was a bumbling incompetent failure you dont have to like it but smoke and mirrors doesnt change it.

 

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9 hours ago, the13bats said:

In my way of thinking you did defend trump by doing as he does and blames others.

My question wasnt about others it was about trump.

I truly believe trump the potus at the time cost lives with his bumblingly incompetence did others cost lives too? Sure, but trump was potus, the country and its peoole were in his little hands and he had butter fingers.

Whats worse i believe trump cost lives for his own personal and political reasons.

And thats my perspective.

Yes, he did cost a few lives with his stupid speaches about two different therapies, one for malaria and one for parasites, because a few people heard him and had access to what they thought he was talking about, but on the whole the deaths are due to a lot of other things and my point was we don't know how many died because of the CDC or NHS dragging their feet and lying to us, or to Congress' lack of action when it was finally realized there was a crisis.   I am not blaming Trump because he was not really involved in the actual decision making of how things played out for this pandemic.   He was a mouthpeice, a distraction.   And I am not supporting him.  And your comment about blame is about yourself not me.  The blame is too complex and there are too many variables to consider to determine who caused what deaths.  Is that more clear?   In this country we have a Very Bad habit (trained in to us by the media) of blaming a single person for something that was done by a comittee, or group not eve related to who gets blamed.

Every president we have had since Nixon is blamed for everything that Congress does that we don't like.   Our president is our representative in foreign affairs, he or she rarely has any power to make any decision without backing from either Congress, the Senate or both.

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13 minutes ago, Desertrat56 said:

Yes, he did cost a few lives with his stupid speaches about two different therapies, one for malaria and one for parasites, because a few people heard him and had access to what they thought he was talking about, but on the whole the deaths are due to a lot of other things and my point was we don't know how many died because of the CDC or NHS dragging their feet and lying to us, or to Congress' lack of action when it was finally realized there was a crisis.   I am not blaming Trump because he was not really involved in the actual decision making of how things played out for this pandemic.   He was a mouthpeice, a distraction.   And I am not supporting him.  And your comment about blame is about yourself not me.  The blame is too complex and there are too many variables to consider to determine who caused what deaths.  Is that more clear?   In this country we have a Very Bad habit (trained in to us by the media) of blaming a single person for something that was done by a comittee, or group not eve related to who gets blamed.

Every president we have had since Nixon is blamed for everything that Congress does that we don't like.   Our president is our representative in foreign affairs, he or she rarely has any power to make any decision without backing from either Congress, the Senate or both.

Repackage it any way you desire you sound to me like you being sympathetic to trumps epic failures.

This is my last reply im this area of the forum, i have no interest in politics and made the mistake of drifting in because the sections i do like are slow.

My point and i dont like that expression but the fact is trump was potus in charge of the country and its people he was as you put it a monthpiece a rather powerfulful one look how he insited his minions to storm the capital on the 6th.

his incompetence and bumblingly cost lives it didnt matter how many when i asked it that way it was rhetorical.

And just to be clear i dont blame trump for everything i dont like out there just the things he did take part in.

Have a good one.

 

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1 hour ago, the13bats said:

The only deranged folks are of course trump and his handful of worshippers who still cant face the fact he failed bigly.

You do realize perhaps you dont you are acting like trump himself, he would be proud his dad taught him to do whatever it took not to loose not to accept failure or blame and like with trump for example his crying about unproven stolen elections, a sore loser man child in delusinal melt down, he made himself look riduculous not just to people like myself who think both sides are clowns but in this case trump lost reelection because America both sides were done with his buffooning even the gop are over him i cant count how many people who voted trump that first time stressed great regret in doing so.

Sure there is a lot of blame to go around but trump was the leader of the country he took on that great responsibility and was a bumbling incompetent failure you dont have to like it but smoke and mirrors doesnt change it.

 

More raging TDS here.   

I stated that Trump did NOT do a good job but you try to twist it as me defending him.  Classic TDS.  

Do you also blame biden for his many, many mistakes or do you still blame Trump for those?

Do you blame the biden supporters who refused to get vaccinated even though a large percentage were black?

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  • 2 weeks later...

I read some research:  covid19 was no worse than flu for those under 65 and healthy, but was 1000 times more deadly for those over 65 with impaired immune systems or diabetes.

Lockdowns were ineffective.

Under those two conditions, there are better ways to protect the elderly and ill than lockdowns.  Like simply quarantining them, social distancing and giving them priority for vaccines.  Lockdowns will not be tried again, at least in the US and probably most of Europe.

Vaccines were the most-effective treatment.

There is a new variant:  Omicron BA.5 that partially evades vaccines.  If it overcomes the rest of the vaccine, we'll be starting over again in a few months.

Doug

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1 hour ago, Doug1066 said:

I read some research:  covid19 was no worse than flu for those under 65 and healthy, but was 1000 times more deadly for those over 65 with impaired immune systems or diabetes.

Lockdowns were ineffective.

Under those two conditions, there are better ways to protect the elderly and ill than lockdowns.  Like simply quarantining them, social distancing and giving them priority for vaccines.  Lockdowns will not be tried again, at least in the US and probably most of Europe.

Vaccines were the most-effective treatment.

There is a new variant:  Omicron BA.5 that partially evades vaccines.  If it overcomes the rest of the vaccine, we'll be starting over again in a few months.

Doug

Just like we start over every year for influenza.   It is true that lockdowns did not work to protect the elderly, partly in the U.S. because people ignored them.   But a lot of people under the age of 65 did die.   A lot of my relatives got covid and it was no worse than the hong kong flu(which was worse than the current flus) for some and for some it killed them or they were hospitalized.   Some were vaccinated and some weren't.   I had the hong kong flu when I was a kid so I have no idea whether the hospitals were inundated with people so sick they couldn't take care of themselves like they were with the covid virus.   If it was no worse than the flu why were the hospitals setting up tents in the parking lots?   In New Mexico it was partly due to 3 hospitals being closed in 2018 & 2019, but only partly.  

If people would just stay home when they are sick (it is obvious when you have a virus once you have had one - they almost all start out the same  way), wash your hands often and teach your children to wash their hands often, sneeze and cough into your elbow, etc.   Covid was a wakeup call, and we need to heed the results of it.   Vaccines are useful but not a cure.  It is normal for a new mutation of a virus to "partially evade" the vaccine.   I know you are not uneducated, why are you posting this stuff? 

Edited by Desertrat56
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Guest Xetan

Even if it were "no worse than the flu," wasn't it much more transmissible? Since the flu is dangerous to roughly these same demographics, it would make sense that a similarly dangerous and more easily transmitted disease would result in more taxed hospitals than usual. That's without getting into the fact that we've had working flu vaccines for decades.

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3 minutes ago, Xetan said:

Even if it were "no worse than the flu," wasn't it much more transmissible? Since the flu is dangerous to roughly these same demographics, it would make sense that a similarly dangerous and more easily transmitted disease would result in more taxed hospitals than usual. That's without getting into the fact that we've had working flu vaccines for decades.

I suspect it was not more transmissible (not an expert, but a thinker).  Based on the numbers of people who got the Hong Kong flu in 1968 & 1969, it seems that the only reason Covid seems more transmissible is because we have been living with some version of influenza since the early 1900's and our immune systems recognize it.  Also, the flu vaccines help by boosting the antibodies so fewer people get it, which has only been going on for about 50 years.    All the same problems, fears, etc. were expressed about the flu vaccine and reasonable people (not the QAnon crowd) have expressed over Covid and it's vaccines.    The transmissibilty of Covid19 is that it is a new virulent variant of an old virus (Corona), just like the Hong Kong flu was for influenza.   People will continue to get covid 19 and the vaccines should be updated every year for the expected variant, though it does seem to mutate faster than the flu, maybe new vaccines for new variants will be possible every 6 months.   I think Media changes and internet access are more of a difference than the actual transmissibility of the virus.

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I've had four shots, so far and the Health Department notifies me when another is available they recommend I take, which I do; it's free. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

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Edited by Hammerclaw
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