Monday, March 01, 2010

Health Insurance Does Not Really "Save Lives"

Although it is intuitively silly to believe that "health insurance saves lives," it is now statistically proven.

Richard Kronick of the University of California at San Diego’s Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, an adviser to the Clinton administration, recently published the results of what may be the largest and most comprehensive analysis yet done of the effect of insurance on mortality. He used a sample of more than 600,000, and controlled not only for the standard factors, but for how long the subjects went without insurance, whether their disease was particularly amenable to early intervention, and even whether they lived in a mobile home. In test after test, he found no significantly elevated risk of death among the uninsured. --McArdle/City Journal

Statistically, of course, the 100% guarantor of death is life.

HT: VerumSerum

1 comment:

GOR said...

"Statistically, of course, the 100% guarantor of death is life."

Yes - something I have pointed out to my doctor on occasion!

The ludicrous claims that this diet, that exercise regime or these pills will prolong one's life are just that - ludicrous.

They may impact the quality of one's life - for good or bad, even - but not its duration, over which we have no control at all.