Average 270 Premature Deaths per Year in Wisconsin Resulting from our Current Free Market Health Care System.

While I don't believe the Affordable Care Act's mandate is unconstitutional, the manufactured interpretation of our founding document still allows the far right to grab at any possible excuse to get rid of it. It's all part of their new freeload society. Tea party losers and the Republican Party for the last 2 years, have encouraged the idea that they don't really have to buy health insurance anymore, so they won't now. No one takes away their freedom with mandates.

But this Looney Tunes attitude toward health care is deadly serious, and here's why:

Milwaukee: A new report from national health care advocacy organization Families USA, co-released by Citizen Action of Wisconsin, documents the number of premature deaths that result from lack of health care coverage.  This important report demonstrates the life and death significance of the impending decision by the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.

According to the report, 1,204 Wisconsinites have died prematurely for lack of health insurance over the past 5 years for which data is available.  That is 22 deaths per month and 270 premature deaths per year in Wisconsin which are directly a result of our broken health care system.  As a comparison, that is almost 50% of the number of traffic deaths in Wisconsin each year.

“For thousands of Wisconsinites, whether the Affordable Care Act survives is not a political football but a matter of life and death,” said Robert Kraig, Executive Director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin.

“These thousands of individual and family tragedies offer a compelling moral reason to fully implement the Affordable Care Act, which will guarantee affordable health coverage to 30 million additional Americans.