Unhealthy and uninsured: Exploring racial differences in health and health insurance coverage using a life table approach

Abstract

Millions of people in the United 2002a;Osteen et al. 1994;Roetzheim et al. 1999). Being uninsured also poses serious fi nancial threats to Americans, with millions carrying a large burden of debt from medical expenses ( Himmelstein et al. 2005). Although public programs-such as Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)-provide health insurance to many who would otherwise not be able to afford coverage, millions are without health insurance.In this article, we argue that current research offers a limited description of health insurance coverage in the United States, especially with respect to racial disparities. More specifi cally, the literature to date does not give a sense of the duration of exposure to being uninsured over a typical lifetime, nor does it address the joint risk of being uninsured and being unhealthy. Yet, having an estimate of the duration of time that individuals typically live with these risks is essential in assessing the magnitude of the insurance-related challenges facing the United States. Moreover, having durational measures of the joint risk of being uninsured and in different health states is particularly important when examining disparities between whites and blacks because blacks are not only more likely to be uninsured but also more likely to experience adverse health events. In this study, we use a life table approach to examine racial differences in health insurance coverage in the United States by calculating health-and insurance-specifi c life expectancies for whites and blacks. These measures capture the duration of exposure to different insurance and health states during a typical lifetime. In the absence of individual data on lifetime insurance coverage, life table analysis is a valuable tool that enables us to simulate life course experiences with health insurance coverage and health. By creating measures with a focus on the lifetime exposure to the joint risks of being uninsured and less healthy, we hope not only to provide a better understanding of issues related to health insurance coverage in the United States but also to elucidate racial disparities in the current U.S. health care system. Specifi cally, we address three important questions. First, how does the proportion of time spent in different health and insurance states over the course of one year differ by age and race? Second, given current age-specifi c mortality, subjective health, and health insurance rates in the United States, how many years can individuals expect to live with different types of insurance coverage and in different health states over a typical lifetime? Third, how large are the differences between blacks and whites in the expected number of years lived in different health-specifi c insurance states? BACKGROUND

Social Integration and Health Insurance Status Among African American Men and Women

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Racial disparities in renal cell carcinoma: a single‐payer healthcare experience

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Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Cervical Cancer Screening and Outcomes

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