Out-of-pocket health spending between low- and higher-income populations
Subtitle: who is at risk of having high financial burdens?
By: Yu-Chu Shen, Joshua McFeeters.
Contributors: McFeeters, Joshua.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper paper series -- no. 11179.; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research) -- working paper no. 11179.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 22
Subjects: Medically uninsured persons -- United States -- Economic conditions; Poor -- Medical care -- United States; Medical care -- United States -- Finance
Description: "We examined characteristics of people with little, moderate, and high burden of out-of-pocket health spending separately for low-income (below 200% of Federal Poverty Line) and higher-income populations. We find that public insurance appears to offer the best financial protection against high out-of-pocket burden. People with private non-group coverage, regardless of their income levels, have the highest risk of being exposed to high out-of-pocket burden. Low-income adults with employer-sponsored insurance are also more likely to be in high burden group than the low-income uninsured adults. For higher-income families, having a family member in fair or poor health is another significant risk factor to increase the likelihood of high out-of-pocket burden. Increasing presence of HMO and Federally Qualified Health Centers appear to have lowered the odds of being in the high-burden category relative to low-burden category, especially for the low-income group"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: "March 2005."

Includes bibliographical references (p. 19-20).

Also available in PDF from the NBER world wide web site (www.nber.org).