Health Care Collaboration

Not having Illinois medical insurance can be a life and death situation. While the health insurance reform bill dangles, more data supports the potential for a higher death toll among the uninsured. From developing cancer, heart disease to suffering from a traumatic injury, evidence portends that being without Illinois medical insurance is merely a fatal proposition.

In a recently published clinical trial, 1231 patients, suffering from head or neck cancers, were followed from 1998 through 2007 at the Pittsburgh Medical Center. Researchers compared the survival rate of patients, who had health insurance with the uninsured. Out of 128 subjects, who did not have health insurance or were on Medicaid, 50 percent passed away. In contrast, only 22 percent of the patients with insurance perished.

Similar mortality discrepancies were noted among individuals suffering from traumatic injuries. Physicians and researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School collected statistics from the National Trauma Data Bank, which has a compilation of 2.7 million patients admitted to trauma centers throughout the United States. Evaluating data from 2002 and 2006, researchers looked at 687,091 adult patients admissions.

The study correlated a significant link between the mortality rates of the uninsured patient versus the insured. Researchers tried to rework the data to eliminate any findings associated with age, race and gender; nonetheless, the statistics showed the same high mortality rate amongst individuals without insurance. Even more perplexing, Medicare members had a survival rate comparable to the insured patients.

Researchers compared hospital admissions, from 1998 to 2005 at the Department of Surgery, Division of Trauma and Critical Care, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, reviewing the mortality rate of 29,829 patient admissions. Sixty-eight percent of the admissions were uninsured patients. The data suggested a higher death rate among the non-insured, who were younger with fewer injuries than the surviving insured counterparts.

Although hospitals initiate treatment, it is unclear whether the disparity in medical care takes place during hospitalization. Despite the lack of research evaluating the mortality rate of the uninsured to individuals with Illinois medical insurance, the Centers for Disease Control has data indicating of Illinoisans not having Illinois medical insurance has been on the rise for more than a decade.

In the interim, cardiovascular disease maintains its status as a leading killer United States. The American Heart Association made note of a 33 percent escalation of cardiovascular inpatient operations from 1996 to 2006. Given the emerging rate of cancer, heart disease diagnoses, a lack of health coverage foretells a fatal outcome.

Illinois medical insurance consultant, Michael Novelli “Despite the fact that cancer and cardiovascular diseases are not completely preventable, individuals with medical coverage are more apt to have early detection, assuring better medical care. An abundance of managed care Illinois medical insurance plans are economical enough to impede additional medical casualties.

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