ER's and the uninsured

To all those moderates and right of center hand-wringers who say that emergency rooms are the ultimate safety net for the uninsured, your delusions have just been dashed.

Patients who lack health insurance are more likely to die from car accidents and other traumatic injuries than people who belong to a health plan -- even though emergency rooms are required to care for all comers regardless of ability to pay, according to a study published today.

An analysis of 687,091 patients who visited trauma centers nationwide from 2002 to 2006 found that the odds of dying from injuries were almost twice as high for the uninsured than for patients with private insurance, researchers reported in Archives of Surgery.