Out-of-pocket health spending between low- and high-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 series ;; working paper 11179; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ;; working paper no. 11179.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Subjects: Medically uninsured persons -- United States.; Poor -- Medical care -- United States -- Costs.; Medical care, Cost of -- 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: Includes bibliographical references.
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Mode of access: World Wide Web.