Study Of Uninsured Finds Wide Disparity Among States

There also were important differences between the uninsured and insured in their use of important preventive medical services.

For instance, 46% of uninsured women who were 40 and over said they had not had a mammogram in the past 12 months, more than double the rate for insured women (20%) in the targeted age group, while 69% of men in the targeted age group of 50+ had not gotten an exam for prostate cancer, compared to 47% of insured men.

The head of a leading health care insurance organization says the report underlined a problem with which health insurers were already familiar.

"Health insurance plans have long recognized that the lack of insurance coverage cuts across economic boundaries, affecting millions of working Americans," says Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of Americas Health Insurance Plans, Washington.

She says her associations board recently adopted "a new policy framework to leverage quality-of-care improvements and cost-containment strategies."

Ignagni says AHIP has sent specific proposals to congressional leaders suggesting ways diverse uninsured populations could be covered.

RWJFs new report was prepared by the State Health Access Data Assistance Center at the University of Minnesota.

Additional findings of the report, which was based on a survey of adults ages 18 to 64, include the following:

–Uninsured adults are twice as likely to report being in poor or fair health than adults who are insured. Nationally, 21% of uninsured say their health is fair or poor, compared to 11% of adults with health coverage. The figure for uninsured adults was above 25% in Texas, Kentucky, Alabama and North Carolina.

–There were considerably more uninsured among Hispanic populations, proportionately, than other major ethnic groups. Among working adults, RWJF found around 35% of Hispanics were uninsured vs. 18% of blacks and 11% of whites.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Edition, May 14, 2004. Copyright 2004 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.