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.

A recent publication, regarding the study of 1231 patients recovering from head or neck cancers from 1998 through 2007 at the Pittsburgh Medical Center, compared the survival rate of patients who were insured to the uninsured. Fifty percent of the 128 patients, who were on Medicaid or were without health insurance perished. In comparison, fewer than 23 percent of the patients with medical coverage passed away.

Similar mortality rate discrepancies were notable among traumatic injury sufferers. At Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School, researchers assessed statistics from the National Trauma Data Bank, where a database of some 2.7 million patient admissions to trauma centers is the United States. Investigating patient admissions from 2002 and 2006, researchers evaluated more than 680,000 adult medical records. 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 extend treatment, it remains unclear whether the higher death rate is attributable to the uninsured obtaining minimal medical care during hospitalization. While there have not been any studies about comparing the death toll of the uninsured to individuals with Illinois medical insurance, the Centers for Disease Control maintains data showing that the rate of Illinoisans not having Illinois medical insurance has been on the upswing for the last decade. The statistics of residents without Illinois medical insurance has been on a steady rise for the past decade.

Meanwhile, heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States. From 1996-2006,the American Heart Association noticed a 33 percent rise in cardiovascular inpatient operations. With close to 15 percent of the Illinois population not having Illinois medical insurance coupled with a high mortality rate of the uninsured, and the emerging number of cardiovascular disease diagnoses, a lack of health coverage forecasts a detrimental 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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