Improved
6112 HealthChanged
3785 LivesSaved
3568 Lives0 lives impacted in the last 24 hrs Learn More
Financial strain or unemployment is never beneficial to mental health, and one of the possible consequences of job loss and low income is lack of proper health care or lack of health care overall.
Some people who lose their jobs can keep their health insurance for a period of time while finding another job, but there are also those who eventually lose their health insurance because they can’t pay the bills and other reasons. They might not qualify for certain help programs or might not know about them.
People who have jobs might not necessarily be guaranteed health care or health insurance as well, since many businesses are trying to cut expenses.
Regardless of how a person comes to not have health care overall and mental health care in specific, there could be dire consequences. This is especially true when someone can't get treatment for mental disorders because lack of health insurance or because they have a preexisting condition like depression and treatment is still unaffordable with insurance.
There can be stress associated with not being able to take care of yourself physically and eventually mentally, and this could aggravate preexisting conditions.
A person who has no health care, but doesn’t necessarily need physical or mental help, is obviously not as bad off as someone who is suffering without treatment. However, the causes of the lack of health insurance could always end up negatively affecting the person. Also, an unknown condition could worsen and the person without health insurance who wasn’t necessarily concerned in the first place has a new reason for concern and stress.
According to a report from the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, “not having health insurance is deadly and costly. Even those with health insurance suffer from the insecurity of inadequate coverage and care.”
For adults, there can obviously be major consequences of not having health insurance. This study focuses mainly on physical consequences, but those can also lead to mental consequences.
“Because individuals without health insurance do not access routine care, preventive care, screening, or even acute care at the same rates as the insured, they face increased severity of illness and possibly premature death,” the study said.
Some of the effects of lack of health insurance can be seen not only in adults, but also children.
“Inadequate health care in childhood results in poorer educational performance and increased chances of poor health over a lifetime,” according to the study.
The study doesn’t delve into why children can have poor educational performance because of lack of health insurance, but it can be guessed that children who are sick won’t perform as well, and maybe they are not being treated for an attention disorder or anything related.
Though this was not mentioned in the study, the stress of not having health insurance and knowing that you have a grave physical condition could always lead to depression or anxiety. Also, just having no health insurance and dealing with everyday life and preexisting conditions could lead to a mental disorder, and not having that treated could worsen the disorder.
In a CNN article from 2001, it was found that “Hispanics had the highest percentage without any health insurance” at 37 percent. The language barrier keeps them from getting proper mental health care in many cases, even though they have “higher rates of depression, anxiety disorders and suicide” than whites.
Though the article focused on minority issues, like delayed, substandard or nonexistent treatment for mental health, these issues can affect everyone in some way. Location (like isolated communities) and cultural stigmas against mental health treatment can also affect certain groups of people.
The World Health Organization estimated that in 2002, “154 million people globally suffer from depression and 25 million people from schizophrenia; 91 million people are affected by alcohol use disorders and 15 million by drug use disorders.”
Mental, neurological and behavioral disorders can cause economic and social costs, according to the WHO. Migraines are even classified in this area, and in 2005 worldwide, there were 326 million sufferers.
“One in four patients visiting a health service has at least one mental, neurological or behavioral disorder but most of these disorders are neither diagnosed nor treated,” the WHO Web site said.
Other illnesses like chronic conditions, such as cancer, can affect mental illnesses and the reverse.
“Untreated, they bring about unhealthy behaviour, non-compliance with prescribed medical regimens, diminished immune functioning, and poor prognosis,” the WHO said.
The lack of treatment of grave physical conditions and mental illnesses can be due to the lack of health insurance, so overall this is a major issues.
Sources:
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH/08/26/mental.health/index.html
http://www.hartfordinfo.org/issues/wsd/health/uninsured_report.pdf
http://www.who.int/mental_health/en/
Add a CommentComments
There are no comments yet. Be the first one and get the conversation started!