Underinsured Americans

Number and Growth of the Uninsured and Underinsured

Health insurance is crucial to most people for access to needed health care services. Lack of insurance is associated with delays in seeking care, noncompliance with treatment regimens, and poorer health outcomes. (Committee on Consequences of Uninsurance [2002]; Hadley [2002]) Approximately 18 percent of the non-elderly adult US population was uninsured in 1998 and just more than 16 percent in...

Screening Colonoscopy among Uninsured and Underinsured Urban Minorities

BACKGROUND/AIMS Uninsured individuals have lower rates of screening colonoscopy (SC), and little is known regarding the pathology results obtained when they undergo colonoscopies. Since 2004, we have participated in a program that offers SC to uninsured New Yorkers; herein, we report our findings. METHODS Uninsured, average-risk patients who were at least 50 years of age underwent SC at our i...

The validity of claims-based risk estimation in underinsured populations.

OBJECTIVES To demonstrate a threat to validity in using claims-based risk tools with chronically ill, underinsured populations. STUDY DESIGN We tracked disease burden of high-risk pool beneficiaries with potentially disabling health conditions receiving enhanced health insurance benefits through a federally funded research demonstration. At baseline, beneficiaries paid high premiums and cost ...

Racial disparities in diabetic complications in an underinsured population.

CONTEXT It is unclear whether there is a racial difference in the incidence of diabetic complications in underinsured populations. OBJECTIVE The objective of the study was to investigate racial disparities in the incidence of diabetic complications within the Louisiana State University (LSU) Hospital System. DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS This study (1997-2009) was conducted on a diabetic cohort e...

Out-of-Pocket Health Care Spending and the Rural Underinsured