Americans dying because cannot access healthcare

from the Louisville, Kentucky Courier-Journal, a pretty scary article about the sad state of healthcare in that state. Some highlights:

People die," May said. "They simply die for lack of health care."

Poverty and a legacy of bad health habits have made Kentucky one of the sickest states in the union. But the crisis is worsened by weaknesses in the state's health-care fabric.

Doctors, clinics and hospitals are in short supply in many rural areas of the state. And many Kentuckians — even in the state's doctor-rich cities — can't afford good and consistent care because they lack insurance or their policies are limited in what they cover. In many cases, they have trouble just getting to a doctor.

Gaps in the health-care system affect such people as Julia Terry and Annetta Vitato.

Terry, 55, of rural Breathitt County in Eastern Kentucky, has no health insurance and earns $269 a month cleaning homes and a church.

She said she hasn't been able to afford to see a doctor, and even if she could, she couldn't pay for any prescriptions for her arthritis and high blood pressure. All she can do, she said, is watch her diet and use Tylenol.

Vitato, 63, of Louisville, regularly goes to the Family Health Centers clinic in Portland for subsidized care because she is unemployed and uninsured.

Yet when her legs swelled dangerously earlier this year, Vitato had to seek hospital treatment because she couldn't get an appointment at the busy clinic on short notice. That left her — and ultimately the hospital and its other customers — with a bill she can never fully pay.

...

Such gaps in care also affect those who do have a doctor, insurance and transportation — they face higher tax and insurance rates to cover those who are without. Plus, crowded emergency rooms lead to delayed care for everyone and greater stress on the staffs.

Said Judy Owens, director of the University of Kentucky Center of Excellence in Rural Health: "The general population who is employed and has insurance, I don't think they quite understand what our safety net is and how many holes there are in it."