"Forty-seven million people are currently without health insurance in the United States," said Sara Collins, Ph.D., assistant vice president at the Commonwealth Fund, in a statement released by Harvard Medicine. The Commonwealth Fund supported the study. Collins added that the new study underscore the urgency of providing health insurance to all Americans.
The study is published in the Dec. 26 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"For every 100 uninsured people with heart disease or diabetes before age 65, we found that with Medicare coverage they had 10 fewer major cardiac complications, such as heart attacks or heart failure, than expected by age 72," Dr. John Ayanian, senior author and professor of health care policy and medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, was quoted as saying in the statement.
"While it may seem self-evident that gaining health insurance should improve health, we were able to measure the impact of coverage on health in a more rigorous way," said co-researcher Dr. J. Michael McWilliams.
