PSY 660 Presentation

General Issues
1. There are over 47 MILLION Americans with NO health insurance.

2. One in four Americans say their family has had a problem paying for medical care during the past year.

3. Businesses, squeezed by soaring health insurance costs, are passing an increasing share of the price tag to their
workers. That's forcing employees to dig ever deeper into their pockets, prompting millions to forgo coverage altogether and gamble that their families will stay healthy.

4. The public health care system is overwhelmed by the country's 47 million uninsured that turn to hospital emergency rooms for even routine care.

5. Medicare is projected to run out of funds by 2019 at the current rate of expenditure growth.

6. 18,000 people per year die because they don't have health insurance.

7. Although nearly 47 million Americans are uninsured, the United States spends more on health care than other industrialized nations, and those countries provide health insurance to all their citizens.

What's driving medical costs?
1. Medical technology: New medical devices and the latest pharmaceuticals are pushing prices up fast.

2. Litigation: The rising cost of malpractice insurance is also increasing the practice of defensive medicine.

3. Uninsured: The growing number of uninsured is an increasing burden on the medical establishment.

4. Administrative costs: Health bureaucracy consumes money that does not go directly to patient care.


Why it’s a problem for the individual’s mental health?
1. Nearly one-quarter (23 percent) of the uninsured reported changing their way of life significantly in order to pay medical bills causing due stress.

2. Nearly 30 percent say someone in their family has delayed medical care in the past year. Most say the medical condition was at least somewhat serious.

3. Lack of health and insufficient health care may cause acute and/ or chronic stress an individual or an entire family.

4. Many individuals have housing problems resulted from medical debt, including the inability to make rent or mortgage payments and the development of bad credit ratings. This may cause stress, depression, and suicidal thoughts.

5. A survey of Iowa consumers found that in order to cope with rising health insurance costs, 86 percent said they had cut back on how much they could save, and 44 percent said that they have cut back on food and heating expenses.

6. Lack of health care may lead to self-medication such as using alcohol to dull pain or obtaining illegal prescriptions or taking illegal drugs to avoid pain and/ or feelings.


Why it’s a problem for the community’s mental health?
1. If people are not insured, they use the ER as their doctor. This creates long hours of waiting sometimes up to 18 to 20 hours of waiting to see a doctor.

2. When people are uninsured, they end up using government services, which use taxpayer money.

3. If people are ill and not able to work they will not be benefiting their community and will need further services from the government like disability and food stamps. If they were just given sufficient health care in the first place, all of that could be avoided.

4. When people are uninsured and use American hospitals, the hospitals “eat” the bills. This makes the price of everyone’s health care rise.

Ways to Get Involved
1. Research! Go to http://americanhealthcarereform.org/html/take-action.html

2. Contact your officials. Go to http://www.ffhs.org

3. Be concerned about your health and the health of your families.

Research Found From (All Articles Listed for viewing within Blog):
1. Americanhealthcarereform.org
2. www.nchc.org
3. Pediatrics; Feb 2002, Vol. 109 Issue 2, pE29-E29, 1p
4. Maternal and Child Health Journal; 29 Mar 2006, Vol. 10 Issue 2, p187-199, 13p
5. American Journal of Public Health; 29 Aug 2006, Vol. 96 Issue 8, p1449-1455, 7p
6. American Journal of Public Health; 28 Feb 2007, Vol. 97 Issue 2, p323-329, 7p
7. www.aflcio.org
8. San Francisco Chronicle
9. YouTube
10. Sicko, a feature film by Michael Moore
11. http://www.hhs.gov/- The United States Department of Health and Human Services