Uninsured and Dying Because of It: Updating the Institute of Medicine Analysis on the Impact of Uninsurance on Mortality

Publication Date: January 2008

Publisher: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Author(s):

Research Area: Health

Type: Report

Abstract:

The absence of health insurance creates a range of consequences, including lower quality of life, increased morbidity and mortality, and higher financial burdens. This report from the Urban Institute focuses on just one aspect of this harm—namely, greater risk of death—and seeks to illustrate its general order of magnitude. The analysis updates a 2002 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report Care Without Coverage: Too Little, Too Late, and estimates nationwide, 22,000 deaths resulted from uninsured adults delaying or going without needed medical care in 2006.

Based on Census Bureau estimates of the uninsured since 2000, and using the IOM's 2002 methodology, the Urban Institute analysis concludes that 137,000 people died between 2000 and 2006 because they were uninsured. The paper notes that the estimates should be viewed as indicators of the general magnitude of mortality that results from lack of insurance. The true number of deaths may be somewhat higher or lower but is surely significant.