Uninsured Get Short Shrift On Care

March 15, 2007 at 10:24 AM
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People who have no health insurance get less care and have worse medical outcomes after the onset of a serious medical condition than do those who are insured, a researcher says.

Following an accidental injury, 79% of the uninsured received any medical care, compared with 89% of the insured, according to Jack Hadley, who compared the insured and the uninsured in a paper commissioned by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Menlo Park, Calif., and published in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Hadley also found that 82% of the uninsured with a new chronic illness received care, vs. 91.5% of insured patients with a new chronic condition.

About 19% of the uninsured received none of the recommended follow-up care after an injury and 9.4% of the uninsured received none of the recommended follow-up care after being diagnosed with a new chronic condition.

Among the insured, only 9.2% received none of the recommended follow-up care after an injury, and only 4.4% received none of the recommended follow-up care after learning of a new chronic condition.

Seven months after the initial health distress, the uninsured with new chronic conditions reported worse health than did the insured with similar conditions, Hadley says.

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