45K deaths a year from lack of health insurance; GOP rep mocks those losing it; O'Reilly backs public option

(Reuters)
Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year -- one every 12 minutes -- in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found in an analysis released on Thursday.

"We're losing more Americans every day because of inaction ... than drunk driving and homicide combined," Dr. David Himmelstein, a co-author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, said in an interview with Reuters.

Overall, researchers said American adults age 64 and younger who lack health insurance have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those who have coverage.

Republican Congressman Phil Gingrey (Georgia), at one point during his long speech railing against health care reform on the floor of the House, found the idea amusing that 14,000 Americans losing their health insurance every day constituted some kind of health care crisis:

14,000 people are losing their health insurance every day NOT because of the cost of health insurance [laughs], they're losing it because they lost their job!

I had to watch this 3 times before I believed what I was hearing. But it's true, Bill O'Reilly backs the public option. Really. No kidding.

(Huff Post)
O'REILLY: The public option now is done. We discussed this, it's not going to happen. But you say that this little marketplace that they're going to set up, whereby the federal government would subsidize insurance for some Americans, that is, in your opinion, a public option?

OWCHARENKO: Well, it has massive new federal regulation. So you don't necessarily need a public option if the federal government is going to control and regulate the type of health insurance that Americans can buy.

O'REILLY: But you know, I want that, Ms. Owcharenko. I want that. I want, not for personally for me, but for working Americans, to have a option, that if they don't like their health insurance, if it's too expensive, they can't afford it, if the government can cobble together a cheaper insurance policy that gives the same benefits, I see that as a plus for the folks.