| By :
Wiley Long
For Texans under the age of 45, injuries are the leading cause of death. Among Texans of all ages, injuries are the third leading cause of death and disability. Having health insurance in Texas may determine who lives and who dies following admission to a hospital for trauma. A trauma patient has a life-threatening physical injury, with the potential for shock and respiratory failure. While equivalent care, independent of insurance status, is mandated by law, an analysis of data from the National Trauma Data Bank shows the reality is very different. The Real Value Of Health Insurance In Texas The National Trauma Data Bank contains information from 2.7 million patients who have been admitted for traumatic injury to more than 900 trauma centers in the U.S. This is the data that researchers looked at to assess patient outcomes, and to compare their outcomes with their insurance coverage. Heather Rosen, M.D., M.P.H., of Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School, and her colleagues analyzed these records with respect to 687,091 patients age 18 and older admitted to hospitals for trauma between 2002 and 2006. When the researchers compared patients who were uninsured to those covered by a managed care organization, commercial indemnity insurance, Medicare or Medicaid, they uncovered a startling trend. Overall, the uninsured patients had the highest rate of death following admission for trauma, even after controlling for age, race, severity and mechanism of injury, and sex. To control for illnesses that may have been present at the time of injury, the researchers analyzed patients age 18 to 30, who were less likely to have co-occurring illnesses. The uninsured patients in this group were still the most likely to die. This also held true in a second analysis of only patients with head injuries, and in a third analysis of patients with one or more co-occurring illness. Health Insurance In Texas And Trauma Survival Rates Most recent research has concentrated on lack of access to health care that results from being uninsured, so why uninsured adults have a 25 percent higher risk of mortality from trauma than insured adults remains unclear. According to the researchers, though, that accounts for approximately 18,000 deaths per year. Trauma treatment may be initiated before payer status is known, so this raises the question of whether differences exist in care during the hospital stay. Lack of insurance may increase your risk of death after trauma in several ways. Uninsured patients may experience a delay in treatment, or they may receive fewer diagnostic tests. Uninsured patients currently face health-related disparities in screening, hospital admission, treatment and outcomes. Although a lack of insurance may not be the only explanation for the disparity in trauma mortality, the life-threatening cost of being uninsured is too high to continue to be overlooked. These preventable deaths certainly warrant more investigation to uncover why a lack of insurance correlates with an increased risk of death from trauma, especially when equal care is mandated by law. In light of these findings, health insurance in Texas is not a luxury. Coverage is not only important for those with pre-existing conditions, or for seniors. No one should have to risk going without coverage because trauma injuries are inherently unpredictable.
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