{"id":1040,"date":"2009-09-24T09:08:45","date_gmt":"2009-09-24T09:08:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/09\/whos-fault-is-the-45000-who-di.html"},"modified":"2009-09-24T09:08:45","modified_gmt":"2009-09-24T09:08:45","slug":"whos-fault-is-the-45000-who-di","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/09\/whos-fault-is-the-45000-who-di.html","title":{"rendered":"Battle Fatalities in the Fight Over Health Care Reform"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A recent study in the Journal of American Public Health concluded that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.apha.org\/about\/news\/ajphreleases\/2009\/nov2009ajphrelease.htm\">45,000<\/a> people die each year for lack of health insurance.<br \/>\nAnother study in 2002, from the Institute of Medicine, put the number at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iom.edu\/Object.File\/Master\/4\/160\/Uninsured2FINAL.pdf\">18,000.<\/a> Still another, put it at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.urban.org\/UploadedPDF\/411588_uninsured_dying.pdf\">22,000. <\/a><br \/>\nAs a back of the envelope calculation, that means that somewhere between 300,000-650,000 people died prematurely between 1994, when the last major health care reform effort was defeated, and today.<br \/>\nIf you take the low end of that estimate, more Americans died from congressional inaction on health care than died during those years as a result of  the first Gulf War, the  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.icasualties.org\/Iraq\/index.aspx\">Iraq War<\/a>, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.icasualties.org\/OEF\/index.aspx\">Afghanistan <\/a>war, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2003\/US\/Northeast\/10\/29\/wtc.deaths\/\">9\/11 <\/a>attacks, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.healthline.com\/blogs\/healthline_connects\/2008\/08\/hurricane-katrina-death-tally-1000-half.html\">Hurrican Katrina<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ojp.gov\/bjs\/homicide\/hmrt.htm\">all of the nation&#8217;s homicides<\/a>&#8212; <strong><strong><u><em>combined.<\/em><\/u><\/strong><\/strong><br \/>\nIf you take the high end, that means that since health care reform was defeated in 1994, about as many Americans have died from lack of insurance as died in battle during <a href=\"http:\/\/www.infoplease.com\/ipa\/A0004615.html\">all of the wars in American history <\/a>(including the Civil War and World War II) &#8212;<em> <u><strong>combined.<\/strong><\/u><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent study in the Journal of American Public Health concluded that 45,000 people die each year for lack of health insurance. Another study in 2002, from the Institute of Medicine, put the number at 18,000. Still another, put it at 22,000. As a back of the envelope calculation, that means that somewhere between 300,000-650,000&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Battle Fatalities in the Fight Over Health Care Reform - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/09\/whos-fault-is-the-45000-who-di.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Battle Fatalities in the Fight Over Health Care Reform - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A recent study in the Journal of American Public Health concluded that 45,000 people die each year for lack of health insurance. Another study in 2002, from the Institute of Medicine, put the number at 18,000. Still another, put it at 22,000. As a back of the envelope calculation, that means that somewhere between 300,000-650,000&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/09\/whos-fault-is-the-45000-who-di.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-09-24T09:08:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"swaldman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Battle Fatalities in the Fight Over Health Care Reform - Steven Waldman","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/09\/whos-fault-is-the-45000-who-di.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Battle Fatalities in the Fight Over Health Care Reform - Steven Waldman","og_description":"A recent study in the Journal of American Public Health concluded that 45,000 people die each year for lack of health insurance. Another study in 2002, from the Institute of Medicine, put the number at 18,000. Still another, put it at 22,000. As a back of the envelope calculation, that means that somewhere between 300,000-650,000&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/09\/whos-fault-is-the-45000-who-di.html","og_site_name":"Steven Waldman","article_published_time":"2009-09-24T09:08:45+00:00","author":"swaldman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/09\/whos-fault-is-the-45000-who-di.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/09\/whos-fault-is-the-45000-who-di.html","name":"Battle Fatalities in the Fight Over Health Care Reform - Steven Waldman","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-09-24T09:08:45+00:00","dateModified":"2009-09-24T09:08:45+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/09\/whos-fault-is-the-45000-who-di.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/09\/whos-fault-is-the-45000-who-di.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/09\/whos-fault-is-the-45000-who-di.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Battle Fatalities in the Fight Over Health Care Reform"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/","name":"Steven Waldman","description":"Author of 'Founding Faith'","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded","name":"swaldman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","caption":"swaldman"},"description":"Steven Waldman is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Beliefnet. He's also the author of the Founding Faith: Politics, Providence, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, which has been published by Random House. Before co-founding Beliefnet in 1999, Waldman was a political journalist, serving as National Editor of U.S. News & World Report and National Correspondent for Newsweek. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Review, The Atlantic, Slate, and many others.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/author\/swaldman"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}