The uninsured and their health care needs: how have they changed since the recession?
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Series Title(s):
- Issue paper (Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured)
- Author(s):
- Carrier, Emily, author Yee, Tracy, author Garfield, Rachel L., author
- Contributor(s):
- Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, issuing body. Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, issuing body.
- Publication:
- Washington, DC : Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, October 2011
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Economic Recession Health Services Needs and Demand -- trends Medically Uninsured -- statistics & numerical data United States
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- As the nation's economy continues to struggle, many Americans are losing their private health insurance coverage and joining the ranks of the uninsured. In 2010, more Americans were uninsured than at any time in the previous decade.1 While the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) will expand health coverage to millions of uninsured Americans, understanding the uninsured population and its needs remains an important concern for policymakers, as major coverage provisions of ACA do not go into effect until 2014. As high rates of unemployment are expected to continue for the foreseeable future, high rates of uninsurance are likely to continue--and perhaps increase further--until the full implementation of health reform in 2014. Thus, there are immediate policy concerns about meeting the current needs of the large and growing uninsured population. In addition, those who have recently lost their employer-sponsored insurance and become uninsured may have different health needs or characteristics than the previously uninsured population. Since previous analyses of the impact of health reform by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and other researchers were made largely based on characteristics of the uninsured prior to the recession, it is important to understand how the uninsured population has changed to assess the effects of the ACA and to prepare for health reform implementation. Last, even after ACA is fully implemented, many people are expected to remain uninsured. Understanding the health care needs of those who remain uninsured is important to efforts to structure a safety net beyond 2014. This analysis uses the Center for Studying Health System Change's (HSC) 2010 Health Tracking Household Survey, the 2007 HSC Health Tracking Household Survey and the 2003 HSC Community Tracking Household Survey to describe the uninsured population and how it has changed over the past decade, especially between 2007 and 2010 when the recession caused many with previously stable coverage to become uninsured. It finds that, while the uninsured population remains disproportionately made up of younger people, the poor, and racial/ethnic minorities, uninsurance rose the fastest among the near-elderly, whites, and those with higher incomes. Many of these demographic shifts may be attributed to the great recession that began in late 2007, while other trends in the characteristics of the uninsured have been longstanding and show little change.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (17 pages, 1 unnumbered page))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 101574605 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101574605