Medicare Recipients Who Have Heart Disease Should Think Twice

Is it safe to assume that if you have private insurance, you are better off than someone who has Medicare? According to researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, having extra private insurance apparently increases you chances of undergoing successful surgery and surviving it.

Patients who were hospitalized for a heart attack and also had some form of private insurance were more likely to receive necessary medical treatment such as bypass surgery and/or coronary angioplasty. Both surgeries are rather expensive and involve complicated procedures that require the expertise of an experienced cardiovascular surgical team. As a result of receiving the surgery, these patients were less likely to die at the hospital than patients who had public insurance such as Medicare and Medicaid.

The numbers are astounding. Patients with private insurance were 69% more likely to undergo coronary angioplasty, 53% more likely to undergo bypass surgery and 23% less likely to die in the hospital over patients who only have Medicare. Patients that had both Medicare and Medicaid had only a 5% advantage -- 5% more likely to undergo bypass surgery/coronary angioplasty and 5% less likely to die in the hospital than patients who have Medicare. So does that mean that Medicare patients who can’t afford supplemental private insurance will have to compromise the type of medical treatment they receive or even sacrifice their lives? According to the statistics, recipients of Medicare, especially patients with heart disease, have a higher hospital mortality rate after such traumatic experiences. If you have Medicare, or know a Medicare recipient, who has a history of heart disease, you may want to reconsider purchasing additional health insurance before another heart attack arises.