Health Insurance Coverage, Mortality, and the Affordable Care Act
This paper examines key issues surrounding health insurance in the United States as of 2012, drawing on scholarly research and news reporting. It discusses findings linking the uninsured status of millions of Americans to elevated mortality rates, highlights the economic burden of high-deductible plans and unaffordable premiums, and explores the political controversy surrounding the Affordable Care Act. The paper also considers public opinion polling data showing broad dissatisfaction with healthcare costs and majority support for universal coverage, and closes with a critique of misinformation spread by media commentators during the legislative debate. Throughout, the paper situates the U.S. as an outlier among industrialized nations in failing to provide universal health coverage.
- Introduction: Overview of rising costs and coverage gaps
- Mortality Risk and the Uninsured: Research linking uninsured status to higher death rates
- Economic Burden on Low-Income Workers and the Newly Jobless: Who is most financially vulnerable without coverage
- Public Opinion on Universal Health Coverage: Poll data on American attitudes toward reform
- The Affordable Care Act, Business Uncertainty, and Misinformation: ACA controversy, business concerns, and media misinformation
- Conclusion: U.S. as outlier; reform challenges summarized
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper grounds its claims in peer-reviewed research (Wilper et al., 2009) alongside news reporting, giving empirical weight to what could otherwise be purely opinion-driven arguments.
- It moves logically from mortality statistics, to economic hardship, to public opinion, to political controversy — building a layered picture of the healthcare issue rather than treating it as a single problem.
- Specific data points (e.g., 18,314 annual deaths, 62% favoring universal coverage, 23% delaying care) anchor abstract policy arguments in concrete evidence.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates source synthesis: it draws on multiple independent sources — a public health journal article, two expert interviews, an ABC News/Washington Post poll, and political news reporting — and weaves them together to support a single coherent argument about the failures of the U.S. health insurance system. Rather than summarizing each source in isolation, the writer uses each one to add a new dimension to the central thesis.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a brief framing introduction, then moves into an extended literature-review section organized thematically rather than source-by-source. Subsections address mortality, economic vulnerability, public attitudes, legislative controversy, and media misinformation before a concise conclusion restates the core claims. The structure is straightforward and well-suited to an undergraduate policy overview paper.
Introduction
The rising cost of health insurance coverage has hurt people who desperately need coverage but cannot afford it. Because many people choose insurance plans with high deductibles — since the premiums are much lower — they find it difficult to cover the out-of-pocket deductible when they are ill or injured, and as a result many do not report their medical or health problems to their providers. There are many other issues revolving around healthcare coverage, and this paper examines several of them.
Mortality Risk and the Uninsured
Dr. Andrew Wilper and colleagues report that the United States "stands alone" among all industrialized countries in the fact that it does not provide health coverage for all its citizens (Wilper, 2009, p. 1). There are approximately 46 million Americans without health insurance coverage, Wilper explains. The most salient issue he addresses, however, is the relationship between being uninsured and mortality — in other words, how many people die in America each year because they lack health insurance?
A study using data from roughly two decades ago found that 18,314 Americans between the ages of 25 and 64 die annually due to lack of health insurance (Wilper, p. 1). Wilper and colleagues then conducted their own study using more recent data. They drew on information gathered from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, focusing specifically on the 9,005 participants between the ages of 17 and 64, in order to determine whether lack of insurance at the time of their interviews predicted subsequent death. Among those 9,005 uninsured individuals — after adjusting for factors such as leisure exercise, smoking, and alcohol use — 3.1% died, Wilper reports (p. 1). The conclusion: being uninsured is significantly associated with mortality.
Economic Burden on Low-Income Workers and the Newly Jobless
Dr. Uwe Reinhardt, professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University, notes that the people without health insurance who are most at risk are the "low-income working stiffs" — those who are not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid but whose employers do not provide insurance and who cannot personally afford the "six to eight thousand dollars for a family of four" (Reinhardt, 2008, p. 1). For those who do receive employer-provided health insurance, Reinhardt explains that disaster strikes when they lose their job: "At the worst moment in your life, you also lose your insurance coverage... [and for] 50-year-olds, when their company gets bought out, restructured, they're on the street" (Reinhardt, p. 2). This scenario cannot occur in Canada, France, England, or Germany, since in those countries — unlike the United States — health insurance is tied to citizenship rather than employment.
Echoing Wilper's findings, Reinhardt notes that "uninsured people die earlier and die at a higher rate from the same illnesses simply because they go too late" for care (p. 4).
Conclusion
The truth about healthcare and insurance in the United States is that this country remains the only industrialized nation that does not provide healthcare for all its citizens. Moreover, when the Obama administration attempted to enact legislation ensuring that most Americans would be covered, it faced enormous challenges — along with bitter political opposition and vicious smears. The Supreme Court held the power to approve or strike down the legislation. As documented in this paper, more people die when they lack insurance, and some people who could afford coverage forego it because premiums remain prohibitively high. The evidence drawn from multiple sources — peer-reviewed research, expert commentary, and public opinion polling — points consistently toward the same conclusion: the absence of universal health coverage in the United States carries real and measurable human costs.
Works Cited
Langer, Gary. "Health Care Pains / Growing Health Care Concerns Fuel Cautious Support for Change." ABC News. Retrieved June 13, 2012, from http://abcnews.go.com.
Lopata, Michelle. "Rush: Obamacare Is Leftist Power Grab to Rewrite Constitution." Newsmax. Retrieved June 13, 2012, from
Reinhardt, Uwe E. "Healthcare Crisis: Who's At Risk?" KCET. Retrieved June 13, 2012, from
Rosenthal, Andrew. "Uncertainty and Health Insurance Reform." The New York Times. Retrieved June 14, 2012, from http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com.
Wilper, Andrew P., Woolhandler, Steffie, Lasser, Karen E., McCormick, Danny, Bor, David H., and Himmelstein, David U. "Health Insurance and Mortality in US Adults." American Journal of Public Health, 99(12), 1–7. 2009.
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