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Recent physician testimony before Congress asserts that uninsured and underinsured patients unnecessarily drain emergency department medical resources. To evaluate the evidence for this and other common assumptions about uninsured ED patients, researchers conducted a MEDLINE search for citations published from 1950 to 2008 that focused on uninsured adult patients (age range, 18 to <65) who were treated in U.S. EDs. Articles involving psychiatric, dental, and non–patient-care issues were excluded. The researchers reviewed 127 papers to identify assumptions (statements made without supporting data or citations) and then searched peer-reviewed literature, administrative data, and national data sets for data to support each assumption.
Of the si…