Title: Out-of-pocket health spending between low- and high-income populations
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.
Subjects: Cost of Medical care, Costs, Finance, Medical care, Medically uninsured persons, Poor
Places: United States