One in five American families has at least one
member who lacks medical coverage, putting the entire family
at greater risk of poor health and financial ruin
Often-cited figures on the number of uninsured Americans --
roughly 39 million individuals in all -- mask the impact of
the problem on their relatives. About 20 million more persons,
40% of them children, are in a family unit with an uninsured
person, it states.
Researchers have known for years that individuals
who lack insurance get less regular healthcare and often have
poorer overall health than those with coverage. Members of
the Institute of Medicine (IOM) panel releasing the report
now say they have evidence that those negative health effects
also spread to other family members who have coverage.
The IOM is part of the National Academy of Sciences,
a privately run organization created by Congress that conducts
studies and advises the federal government on policy issues.
While most insured US families are covered by
employer-subsidized policies, the anemic economy and steadily
rising insurance costs mean that fewer and fewer bosses are
offering coverage. Those that do may pare down coverage, no
longer covering spouses or children on a worker's policy.
Low-income families face the greatest risk,
since the cost of food and housing tends to squeeze out the
ability to pay for insurance premiums. Even wealthier families
are unlikely to tap their family budgets to seek regular medical
care for an uninsured member.
The nation's insurance system is really a "hodgepodge"
of private and a government insurance program that leaves
millions of families with gaps in coverage as members retire,
change jobs, or enter the workforce.
Federal and state programs cover most children
without health insurance but less than half of the 8 million
children who are eligible are enrolled. Parents who lack coverage
are less likely to enroll their kids in such programs, possibly
because of a lack of trust in the healthcare system.
The scenario forces many families to pick and
choose whom to cover out of limited funds. Most will choose
to cover a working parent so that wages are less likely to
be lost in the event of illness. That still leaves the budget
vulnerable to ruin if someone else in the family falls ill
or sustains an injury.
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Document Name & Link to Document
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Description
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File Size /Type**
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Before and After Welfare Reform: The Uncertain Progress
for Poor Families and Children
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The
sweeping reforms of the ‘Personal Responsibility and
Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996,’ which
ended the federal entitlement to cash assistance under
the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program and
created the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
program, brought about dramatic decreases in welfare
caseloads at a time when the economy was booming…The
long-term impact of welfare reforms on the health and
well-being of poor children and their families is far
from clear |
165
kb pdf |
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Census
Bureau-Health Insurance Coverage-2001
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Reversing two years of falling uninsured
rates, the share of the population without health insurance
rose in 2001. An estimated14.6 percent of the population
or 41.2 million people were without health insurance
coverage during the entire year in 2001,up from 14.2
percent in 2000, an increase of 1.4 million people
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Closing
the inequality gap in access to primary healthcare for
women living with Hepatitis C
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One of the major
challenges facing women diagnosed with hepatitis C is
overcoming the stigma attached to this illness which
frequently acts as a barrier to appropriate and timely
primary health care.
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COMPARING FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
SURVEYS THAT COUNT UNINSURED PEOPLE IN AMERICA |
The
number of uninsured Americans is large and growing over
time, but there is debate about exactly how many
Americans are uninsured. Researchers use data from
several different surveys to estimate the number of
uninsured people in America and discrepancies frequently
arise. Why is there so much variance in federal
estimates of the number of uninsured Americans? What are
the differences in how these surveys are conducted? This
brief compares estimates from four national surveys
conducted by the federal government used to estimate the
size of the uninsured population, identifies the
differences between them, and points out two common
threads – all the surveys report very large numbers of
Americans living without health insurance and all show
that these numbers have risen. |
Pdf
289 kb |
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Containing
Cost while Maintaining Quality
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Articles about how insurance companies
are trying to reduce costs and maintain profitability
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Data
to Analyze Children’s Health Insurance Coverage: An
Assessment of Issues
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Survey data will play an important role
in the evaluations of the Children’s Health Insurance
Program (CHIP) because program administrative data cannot
tell us what is happening to the number of uninsured
children. This report discusses key analytic issues
in the use of national survey data to estimate and analyze
children’s health insurance coverage.
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disease
management
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Report from the health insurance industry-"Financial
and risk considerations for successful Disease Management
Programs"
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PDF / 211 kb
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Est.
future Hepatitis C morbidity, mortality, and costs in the US
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This study estimated future morbidity,
morality, and cost resulting from hepatitis C virus
(Hepatitis C Virus).
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PDF / 133 KB
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health
care exposure
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Exposure to toxins and infectious diseases
in the work area
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PDF / 471 KB
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health
care fraud
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mid-way thru article-Corporate Healthcare
Fraud-costs and risks
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PDF / 346 KB
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health
care workers with AIDS
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Surveillance of Health Care Workers with
AIDS and the positions that they hold
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PDF / 42 KB
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Health Insurance Coverage of the Near Elderly |
On
the whole, the near elderly actually have higher rates
of health insurance coverage than other age groups…Many
are decreasing the level of their workforce
participation and their incomes in turn are declining.
For many others, health status begins to decline in
their mid-fifties. |
1484
kb pdf |
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Health Insurance, Treatment and Outcomes: Using Auto
Accidents as Health Shocks* |
Previous studies find that the uninsured receive less
health care than the insured, yet differences in health
outcomes have rarely been studied. In addition,
selection bias may partly explain the difference in care
received. To examine health outcomes and deal with
selection problems, this paper focuses on an unexpected
health shock—severe automobile accidents where victims
have little choice but to receive treatment. Another
innovation is the use of a comparison group that is
similar to the uninsured: those who have private health
insurance but do not have automobile insurance. The
medically uninsured are found to receive twenty percent
less care and have a higher mortality rate compared to
patients with health insurance. It appears that the
ability-topay of patients has a significant effect on
treatment decisions and the additional treatment yields
large improvements in health outcomes. |
Pdf
296 kb |
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Health
Insurer Benefits
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Oxford Health Plans reports improved first-quarter
earnings and raises its profits forecast for year, becoming
latest health insurer to benefit from nationwide trend
of moderating hospital and drug costs; says net income
rose 2.1 percent
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HIPPA-portability
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Insurance report on HIPPA regulations
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PDF / 50 KB
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HIV
Exposure Report Form
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Report Form for the potential HIV exposure
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PDF / 80 KB
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How Private Insurance Works-A Primer |
This primer provides a basic overview of private
coverage for health care. It begins by describing what
we mean by private health coverage, and continues with
discussions of the types of organizations that provide
it, its key attributes, and how it is regulated. |
1044
kb pdf |
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insurance
claims
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1998 legislative outlook for the insurance
industry
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PDF / 151 KB
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Insurance
Personnel |
Within the private
sector, the insurance industry has been at the forefront
of the societal response to HIV/AIDS, often in the
‘firing-line’ from AIDS activists resulting from the
industry’s HIV testing policies.
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Pdf 372 kb
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Insurance
privacy issues
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Insurance report on the current issues
in Employee Benefits
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PDF / 336 KB
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insurance
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Insurance report on the capitation arrangements
to protect against losses
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PDF / 462 KB
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Insurance-Actuarial
aspects of Dread Disease
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Actuarial aspects of dread Disease Products
concerning infectious diseases
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PDF / 526 KB
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Insurance-Hepatitis C-health,
law protection
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Insurance report on Hepatitis C and the
potential cost hospitals may face
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PDF / 417 KB
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Near-Elderly Americans Talk about Health Insurance-At
the Edge |
While some are retiring early because they can afford to
do so (19%), others are out of the workforce because of
illness or disability (14%). But the majority are still
working and despite their years, many are not
financially stable. More than a fifth of the near
elderly are in low-income families, with incomes less
that 200% of the federal poverty level |
583
kb pdf |
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One in Three: Non-Elderly Americans Without Health
Insurance 2002-03 |
This
report examines how many people under the age of 65 were
without health insurance for all or part of 2002 and
2003. The findings are based exclusively on data
projections drawn from the most recent CPS as well as
the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program
Participation. |
213 kb pdf |
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Outcomes
and Costs of Care in Hepatitis C.
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Prospective, multicenter, pharmaceutical
company-sponsored randomized clinical trials in the
treatment of chronic hepatitis C have shown that clearance
of hepatitis C virus (Hepatitis C Virus) is more likely in those treated
with -interferons than in untreated patients
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Patients
Paying Larger Percentage for Insurance |
Faced with "rapidly rising" prescription
drug spending, which is climbing at about 15% per year,
employers and insurers have increasingly shifted the
costs to patients, who "may soon pay even more,"
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Probability Tables for disability |
Mathematical descriptions and methods used for
determining the probability of disability used by the
Rand corporation
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230 kb pdf |
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Problems
of Lost Health Benefits
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Census Bureau figures, 1.4 million Americans
lost their health insurance last year, an increase largely
attributed to the economic slowdown and resulting rise
in unemployment. The largest group of the newly uninsured
— some 800,000 people — had incomes in excess of $75,000.
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Preventive Services: Helping Employers Expand Coverage
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By
purchasing health insurance for their employees,
employers influence access to health care for more than
168 million insured Americans…Two out of every three
Americans were covered by private health insurance
sponsored by employers in 2001
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348 kb pdf
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Preventive Services: Helping States Improve Mandates
(Large file-please allow extra time for download) |
Mandating coverage of a range of recommended preventive
services can improve health, prevent disease and
disability, and potentially lower some health costs |
1487 kb pdf |
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Re
unaffordable meds
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Winning affordable medications for ALL
Americans-a report to subcommittee on Health
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PDF / 27 KB
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Risk
& Management for Healthcare workers-bloodborne
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Risk and Management of Blood-Borne Infections
in Health Care Workers-an insurance report
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PDF / 354 KB
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Sicker and Poorer: The Consequences of Being Uninsured |
If being uninsured leads to poorer health, inefficient
use of medical care resources, fewer hours worked and
lower earnings, and lower educational attainment, then a
large uninsured population creates costs in the form of
foregone opportunities, which do not appear as explicit
government payments or budgetary line items. |
1602
kb pdf |
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State Medicaid Eligibility Cutbacks &
Exclusions-Proposed & Recently-Enacted, 2001-04 |
Nonetheless, many states dropped coverage of legal
aliens; cut eligibility and benefits for, or even
dropped, state-only medical assistance for the
federally-unmatchable poor; added or raised premiums and
copays and cut "optional" services in S-CHIP and
Medicaid; raised Medicaid drug copays; added preferred
formularies, generics requirements and monthly number
limits for Medicaid drugs; stopped “presumptive”
eligibility for pregnant women (a clever back-door way
to bar otherwise-federally-mandated coverage of
citizen-to-be fetuses of poor illegal alien mothers) and
curtailed services and enrollment in expensive home and
community-based (HCB) waivers. |
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Survey of People with Disabilities |
Report offers many graphs and charts concerning this
study |
216 kb pdf |
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The
Business of Medicine
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A kind of "generational switch,"
which Dr. Trujillo believes has ushered out the golden
epoch of medicine – characterized by professional autonomy
and high reimbursement. "Now, we are in an era
where increasing financial control is exerted upon us.
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The
high cost of Health goes Higher
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Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health
Research and Educational Trust finds that premiums for
employer-sponsored health insurance, which covers two
of three Americans, increased an average of 11 percent
in 2001, the largest increase since 1992
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The
Other Drug War-Public citizen
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How the pharmaceutical industry fights
to protect its interests
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PDF / 318 KB
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The Right to Equal Treatment: Student Toolkit to address
Racial and Ethnic Disparities in US Health Care |
The problem of racial and ethnic disparities in health
is one of the most serious human rights issues facing
Americans today. People in racial and ethnic minority
groups in this country tend to live shorter lives and
suffer higher rates of diseases than do whites. |
263
kb pdf |
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The Social Impact of AIDS in the United States |
The
U.S. health care system stands alone among advanced
industrial countries in lacking a national program to
ensure universal or nearly universal health insurance
coverage. The various public and private insurance plans
and delivery systems (such as the Veterans
Administration health system) reflect what John Iglehart
characterizes as ''society's profound ambivalence about
whether medical care for all is a social good, of which
the costs should be borne by society, or a benefit that
employers should purchase for employees and their
dependents, with government insurance for people outside
the work force." This ambivalence, and the resulting
lack of any political consensus on how to finance and
deliver health services, has resulted in an odd
assortment of programs that does provide health
insurance to about 85 percent of the population, but
leaves some 36 million people uninsured. The uninsured
are primarily full-time workers and their dependents who
are employed in small firms at a low or the minimum
wage. |
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tip
of iceberg
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Insurance report on occupational exposure
to an infectious disease and how companies can protect
themselves
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PDF / 445 KB
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Triangular Clinics: The Way of The Future |
Hepatitis C is not just a blood-borne disease, but a
global threat, socially and economically. Every year,
thousands of articles are written on this subject
emphasizing the importance of urgent global efforts in
reducing its incidence. World Health Organization (WHO)
estimations suggest that up to 3% of the world's
population (170 million) have been infected with HCV.
About 85 percent of people with acute hepatitis C
develop a chronic infection, an insidious disease whose
barely discernible symptoms can mask progressive injury
to liver cells over 2 to 4 decades. It is now the
leading cause of liver cancer and results in more liver
transplants than any other disease |
Pdf
223 kb |
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What
Happens When COBRA Ends
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There are two federal laws that can be
used to continue health insurance once your COBRA Continuation
Coverage ends. Both provide access to health insurance
without having to prove that you are "insurable."
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Why do Americans have such poor Health?
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In order to understand
the current status of medical care in the U.S., Canada
and Europe it is vital to understand that health care in
these 3 regions is nearly completely under the control
of the pharmaceutical industry. All major pharmaceutical
firms have interlocking boards of directors so there is
no real competition among these companies.
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