In Case You Needed It, Here's Another Reason Why Health Insurance Is Important

A recent study from Johns Hopkins found that children who enter the hospital uninsured are more likely to die than those who have coverage. In fact, uninsured children were found to have an in-hospital mortality rate 60% higher than their insured counterparts. Extrapolating their findings (and assuming that lack of insurance was the driving factor), the researchers estimate that approximately 17,000 in-hospital deaths may have been prevented over the last 18 years if these children were covered.

An interesting conclusion suggested by the paper is that these children were sicker before they were admitted. The rationale - uninsured children who died during their hospital stay were in the hospital for a shorter amount of time and the charges for their care were significantly lower. The authors propose that the uninsured children presented with more serious cases and, in many circumstances, it was simply too late to intervene.

This study adds to a long list of research showing the importance of health insurance, including findings that uninsured children are less likely to receive immunizations, prescription medications, asthma care, and basic dental care. Others have found that children who have coverage miss fewer days of school and have fewer avoidable hospitalizations. Importantly, they also tend to receive more timely diagnoses of serious health conditions, a point that this study seems to validate.