CHICAGO - Uninsured patients with traumatic injuries, such as car crashes, falls and gunshot wounds, were almost twice as likely to die in the hospital as similarly injured patients with health insurance, according to a troubling new study. The findings by Harvard University researchers surprised doctors and health experts who have believed emergency room care was equitable.
"This is another drop in a sea of evidence that the uninsured fare much worse in their health in the United States," said senior author Dr. Atul Gawande, a Harvard surgeon and medical journalist....
The findings are based on an analysis of data from the National Trauma Data Bank, which includes more than 900 U.S. hospitals. "We have to take the findings very seriously," said lead author Dr. Heather Rosen, a surgery resident at Los Angeles County Hospital, who found similar results when she analyzed children's trauma data for an earlier study. "This affects every person, of every age, of every race."
--© 2009 The Associated Press, on msnbc.com (11.16.09)
Why should we be surprised? When healthcare and healthcare insurance are treated as a commodities mediated by commercial markets, you get what you pay for. And if you can't afford to pay, and your life rests in the balance, then you cannot be surprised if your life is forfeit when someone else with healthcare insurance will likely survive. Isn't it well past the time to join most civilized societies in defining healthcare as a civil right, a human right? But the answer's still no, isn't it?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33971846/ns/health-health_care/
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