jps wrote:
On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:14:06 -0800, jps wrote:

The obvious conclusion is that they show up in the emergency room long
after they should have seen a primary care physician...


An analysis of 687,091 patients who visited trauma centers nationwide
from 2002 to 2006 found that the odds of dying from injuries were
almost twice as high for the uninsured than for patients with private
insurance, researchers reported in Archives of Surgery.

Trauma physicians said they were surprised by the findings, even
though a slew of studies had previously documented the ill effects of
going without health coverage. Uninsured patients are less likely to
be screened for certain cancers or to be admitted to specialty
hospitals for procedures such as heart bypass surgery. Overall, about
18,000 deaths each year have been traced to a lack of health
insurance....

The research team from Harvard University and Brigham and Women's
Hospital in Boston used information from 1,154 U.S. hospitals that
contribute to the National Trauma Data Bank. The team found that
patients enrolled in commercial health plans, health maintenance
organizations or Medicaid had an equal risk of death from traumatic
injuries when the patients' age, gender, race and severity of injury
were taken into account.

The risk of death was 56% higher for patients covered by Medicare,
perhaps because the government health plan includes many people with
long-term disabilities, said Dr. Heather Rosen, who led the study
while she was a research fellow at Harvard Medical School.

The risk of death was 80% higher for patients without any insurance,
the report said.


My assumption was only partially right. After further reading, it's
revealed that uninsured, among other factors, wait longer to be seen,
are more likely to be victims or participants in/of violent crime, or
aren't afforded more expensive diagnostic procedures.

Don't know how badly I feel for the perps but their victims shouldn't
suffer...


The reason for this much higher risk of death isn't immediately clear.
The researchers point out that, while federal law requires that
emergency rooms provide care, the uninsured often have longer waits in
the ER, and sometimes have to go to various ERs to find one that will
treat them. They are also likely to receive fewer services, especially
expensive ones like MRI scans. They also are likely to have more
untreated underlying condidtions that compromise their overall health.
Additionally, the demographics of the uninsured and traumatic injuries
is a factor; "gunshot and stabbing victims -- frequently younger
people involved in crime" are more likely to die and more likely to be
uninsured than other trauma patients.

Bottom line, being uninsured is potentially deadly. The moral and
financial costs to the country are unacceptable, and any member of
Congress who obstructs this effort to reform the system will carry the
responsibilty of those deaths.

I think you answer the question in in the last couple of lines of the
first paragraph. It is much easier to survive a finger cut on a saw
than it is to survive a gunshot, beating, or stabbing. In the central
part of the city where I living hardly a day goes by without someone in
the news with gunshot, beating, or stabbing.

The US could institute the most socialized health care system in the
world and it would not prevent injuries inflicted by one person on
another, not would it change the survival rate. There is only so much a
Doctor can do to save a life.