Uninsured Get Short Shrift On Care

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.