This is one of those things that seems kind of obvious but, when thinking about it in terms of the broader health care reform debate, it's implications are huge. If there is such success at staving off poor health after the uninsured person turns 65 (e.g., as noted by the article, "[u]ninsured people with heart disease and diabetes radically cut their expected rate of decline, to a point where they were almost as healthy at 72 as they were at 65"), imagine what could happen if coverage were extended to everyone? Although the article does not get into this, intuitively it would seem that the costs associated with reducing the risk of declining health would rise in accordance with the rising age of the uninsured individual.
Also from the article: “
Our findings provide some of the strongest evidence yet that expanding health coverage to the uninsured improves their health,” said Dr. J. Michael McWilliams, the paper’s lead author and a research associate at Harvard, particularly older people with “conditions like hypertension, diabetes and heart disease, for which there are effective therapies.”
This seems obvious but, for some, I guess it hasn't been. Food for thought as we enter a new year. Let's hope that, as 2008 comes to a close, real health care reform is just around the bend.
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