Being without health insurance can be a very stressful situation. Whether you are currently in good health or not, having health insurance is vitally important to staying healthy. Being uninsured creates health risks because the uninsured tend to avoid preventative care, experience high costs to access health care, delay care and actually increase their chances of death, according to the Get Some Health Insurance website.
Preventative Care
Individuals who do not have health insurance are less likely to seek preventative care such as mammograms, cholesterol checks and regular checkups that can help detect and treat ailments before they become serious or life threatening concerns. For example, according to the "No Health Insurance? It's Enough to Make You Sick" report issued by the American College of Physicians -- American Society of Internal Medicine (ACP-ASIM), uninsured women are less likely to have had a recent mammogram (30 percent compared with 50 percent for insured women) and less likely to have completed a clinical breast exam (49 percent compared with 66 percent).
Costs
According to a Commonwealth Fund Health Insurance Survey in 2001, 54 percent of uninsured individuals went without treatment due to the costs related to medical services such as filling prescriptions, scheduling follow-up appointments with doctors and going to specialists. This compares to 21 percent of insured individuals who had coverage during the same period of time.
Avoidable Hospitalizations
Delaying medical care can result in hospitalizations that could have been prevented. In fact, according to the "No Health Insurance? It's Enough to Make You Sick" report, uninsured individuals are four times more likely to be hospitalized for conditions relating to asthma, diabetes, congestive heart failure, hypertension or ulcers than individuals with private health insurance. Most of these hospitalizations result from a lack of preventative care and regular visits to a physician.
Earlier Death
According to an ABC News report, findings from Cambridge Health Alliance, which monitored 9,000 adults under the age of 64 over an eight-year period, indicate that individuals without health insurance are 40 percent more likely to die than those with private health insurance. The report "No Health Insurance? It's Enough to Make You Sick" supports this finding, stating that the uninsured are 3.2 times more likely to die in the hospital than insured individuals.
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