American workers who lack health insurance are up to 30 percent more likely to die in any given year than workers who are insured through their employers, a study of almost 150,000 people found.
The reasons have been well documented - people without insurance get less routine or preventative care, and when they get sick, face many more barriers to getting the attention they need, said Douglas D. Bradham, a health economist at the Bowman Gray School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C."They probably seek care late, typically in the emergency room," Bradham said. "They may not receive preventive services and screening services.
"Without proper screening, such as mammography, prostate cancer screening and colon cancer screening, their mortality would be expected to be higher."
The research also confirms previous studies showing that poor die at much higher rates than the rich, even if they do have insurance.
"Poverty and low income and inability to purchase services are not good for you, even if you've got insurance," said the lead researcher, Paul D. Sorlie, an epidemiologist with the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
Of the people studied, 69 percent had employer-based insurance; about 4 percent were on Medicaid, the publicly funded health insurance program for the poor; and about 13 percent had no insurance. The remainder were covered through other means, including the military and disability coverage.
After controlling for differences in age and income, the researchers found that uninsured working men were 30 percent more likely to die and uninsured working women were 20 percent more likely to die than their working counterparts who had health insurance through their employers.
About 9 percent of the working men studied had no insurance; about 6 percent of working women had none.
Overall, uninsured men - including workers and nonworkers - were 20 percent more likely to die than employer-covered men. Uninsured women overall were 50 percent more likely to die than employer-covered women.