No Insurance? That’s a Killer

Drawing on the National Trauma Data Bank, which collects information from approximately 700 U.S. trauma centers and hospital emergency departments, Haider and his colleagues analyzed almost 430,000 moderate to severe cases of traumatic injury (from auto accidents, gunshots and other causes) treated between 2001 and 2005. Controlling for age, gender, type and severity of injury, they found that, overall

Uninsured patients were 50 percent more likely to die from their injuries than insured patients. 

Among white patients...

  --- the mortality rate for those with insurance was 4.2 percent, 

  --- compared with 7.9 percent for the uninsured. 

The numbers for minorities were worse... 

Uninsured African-Americans died at more than double the rate of the insured...

     11.4 percent to 4.9 percent. 

And while 6.3 percent of insured Hispanic patients died after traumatic injury...

     the rate for uninsured Hispanics was 11.3 percent.

I thought emergency rooms were the great leveler, with everyone treated the same?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/166854