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The health conditions and the health care consumption of the uninsured

This paper investigates the difference in the health conditions and the health care consumption of uninsured individuals as compared to individuals with private insurance, using a nationally representative data set of inpatient hospital admissions from the US. In line with the previous literature, o...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Castaneda, Marco A., Saygili, Meryem
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5142170/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27924584
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13561-016-0137-z
Descripción
Sumario:This paper investigates the difference in the health conditions and the health care consumption of uninsured individuals as compared to individuals with private insurance, using a nationally representative data set of inpatient hospital admissions from the US. In line with the previous literature, our results indicate that uninsured individuals are, on average, in worse health conditions. However, if we compare individuals within the same diagnosis category, the uninsured are actually healthier, with a lower number of chronic conditions and a lower risk of mortality. This indicates that the uninsured are admitted to the hospital only for more serious conditions. In addition, our results show that uninsured individuals consume less health care. In particular, conditional on being admitted to a hospital and controlling for health conditions, the uninsured have lower total charges, fewer procedures, and a higher mortality rate.