Another Study Tells Us The Obvious: The Least Among Us Suffer The Most
Study: Uninsured Kids Fare Worse At Hospitals
Did we really need a study to tell us that children lacking proper health care coverage suffer the most among us? Did we need a study to tell us that what care they do receive is sub-standard?
Big surprise! How much grant money was wasted on this study? How many kids could have been offered better care through the money spent on this study? Some things are so obvious that they do not need a study. The fact that kids without insurance--or even adequate insurance--receive substandard care, do not receive the treatment options offered to those with insurance (or better insurance) has never been a mystery. As a former medical social work intern at St. Louis University Medical Center, I spent many hours just trying to get those in need the care they needed. In one case I strong armed a drug rep to provide three months of a medication that the drug company charge $14,000 per dose for free. I pulled out the stops. I had priests and brothers from the university write letters, I called upon the patient's minister to make phone calls to executives in the drug company, and I attempted to get the St. Louis Dispatch to write an article in order to get the company some free publicity. In the end I got the three months worth of the medication, but was told not to come calling again. Since we conquer the problems of the world one step at a time, I was content with the limited success I had achieved. But I was worried how to work the next miracle to get the needed doses for the next three months since the drug company was the only source of this medication.
The fact that we have nine million children without proper health care options is a criminal reality. We are among the richest nations in the world with corporations that post huge profits... and we do not provide for our own children. Given what I know from my work as a social worker, counselor, educator and advocate, I would bet that almost every single one of these 9 million children have experienced at least one day where they have been hungry. Hell, I am willing to bet that at least half that number has gone a day or two without a proper meal. I am also willing to bet that a large number of those kids--a larger number than we might like to think--have gone hungry for several days at a time and another large number have experience homelessness. For those among us that claim a Christian faith, that should be grounds for dropping to our knees in shame, offering not only prayers for forgiveness, but prayers to empower us and our leaders to do a better job at providing for those in such need. For the Muslims among us, the failure to do a duty that the Holy Koran calls us to do is grounds for seeking God's forgiveness. The same should be the case for the Jews among us. For a nation in which 90% claim to believe in God, we have done a poor job of following the teachings of a loving God.
We need a full-fledged national health care plan. We need an educational component to this plan that would provide scholarships for students seeking to enter medicine and nursing, providing they serve the nation's hospitals on a limited salary for a specific period of time that is tied to the amount of money and time spent supporting this education.
What is there to dispute? Anyone that has kids knows that even the insurance provided by most employers is not completely adequate to cover all the necessities. Managed Care Organizations are refusing proper treatments every day. So-called full service insurance plans do not cover a lot of things without first fighting the idea. Anyone with a life threatening illness is in for another fight... just getting insurance to pay the freight. So when a person doesn't have any insurance, how mush worse is the reality?
Read the full text of the study for yourself.
Did we really need a study to tell us that children lacking proper health care coverage suffer the most among us? Did we need a study to tell us that what care they do receive is sub-standard?
Hospitalized children who lack health insurance are twice as likely to die from their injuries as those with insurance, a new study reports.
Uninsured children also are less likely to get expensive treatment or rehabilitation and are discharged earlier, says the study by the health care advocacy group Families USA.
Big surprise! How much grant money was wasted on this study? How many kids could have been offered better care through the money spent on this study? Some things are so obvious that they do not need a study. The fact that kids without insurance--or even adequate insurance--receive substandard care, do not receive the treatment options offered to those with insurance (or better insurance) has never been a mystery. As a former medical social work intern at St. Louis University Medical Center, I spent many hours just trying to get those in need the care they needed. In one case I strong armed a drug rep to provide three months of a medication that the drug company charge $14,000 per dose for free. I pulled out the stops. I had priests and brothers from the university write letters, I called upon the patient's minister to make phone calls to executives in the drug company, and I attempted to get the St. Louis Dispatch to write an article in order to get the company some free publicity. In the end I got the three months worth of the medication, but was told not to come calling again. Since we conquer the problems of the world one step at a time, I was content with the limited success I had achieved. But I was worried how to work the next miracle to get the needed doses for the next three months since the drug company was the only source of this medication.
The report was sent this week to congressional committees that are considering ways to help some of the nation's 47 million uninsured people, including 9 million children, get coverage. A federal-state program created in 1997 that has insured more than 6 million children is up for renewal this year.
The fact that we have nine million children without proper health care options is a criminal reality. We are among the richest nations in the world with corporations that post huge profits... and we do not provide for our own children. Given what I know from my work as a social worker, counselor, educator and advocate, I would bet that almost every single one of these 9 million children have experienced at least one day where they have been hungry. Hell, I am willing to bet that at least half that number has gone a day or two without a proper meal. I am also willing to bet that a large number of those kids--a larger number than we might like to think--have gone hungry for several days at a time and another large number have experience homelessness. For those among us that claim a Christian faith, that should be grounds for dropping to our knees in shame, offering not only prayers for forgiveness, but prayers to empower us and our leaders to do a better job at providing for those in such need. For the Muslims among us, the failure to do a duty that the Holy Koran calls us to do is grounds for seeking God's forgiveness. The same should be the case for the Jews among us. For a nation in which 90% claim to believe in God, we have done a poor job of following the teachings of a loving God.
"The clear implication … is that when kids get sick or hurt, insurance matters," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA. "As is true throughout our health care system, children without health insurance receive less and inferior care."
We need a full-fledged national health care plan. We need an educational component to this plan that would provide scholarships for students seeking to enter medicine and nursing, providing they serve the nation's hospitals on a limited salary for a specific period of time that is tied to the amount of money and time spent supporting this education.
Representatives of two major hospital associations disputed the study's methodology. They said it failed to take into consideration the types of hospitals involved, clinical decisions made and details on each patient's condition. They said the sample size was small and the report was not peer-reviewed.
What is there to dispute? Anyone that has kids knows that even the insurance provided by most employers is not completely adequate to cover all the necessities. Managed Care Organizations are refusing proper treatments every day. So-called full service insurance plans do not cover a lot of things without first fighting the idea. Anyone with a life threatening illness is in for another fight... just getting insurance to pay the freight. So when a person doesn't have any insurance, how mush worse is the reality?
Read the full text of the study for yourself.
posted by Jim Downey at 3:59 AM
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