Why don’t people have health insurance?

The simple answer is, they can’t afford it. This may be a good argument for low-income individuals but for middle class and even upper middle class individuals we see people going without health insurance. The question is why. If income was the whole story, we would observe different incomes levels would have closer to 100%…

The Number of Uninsured Growing in California

Although Health Reform has passed, many of its mandates–such as Health Insurance Exchanges–have not yet been implemented.  As the cost of health care has been growing over time, the number of uninsured has also been growing. The California Health Care Foundation examines the uninsured in California in more detail.  Although Texas has the highest share…

The Cost of Uncompensated Care

Because it expands health insurance coverage, one of the key effects of the recently passed health reform bill is that it will decrease the amount of compensated care.  According to an Urban Institute study: “…the cost of uncompensated care will fall from $62.1 billion in 2009 to $46.6 billion in 2019 under the Senate bill,…

Do we spend too much on immigrant health care?

The Immigration Policy Center believes not.  Some evidence they give includes: Ku (AJPH 2009) reports that “immigrants’ medical costs averaged about 14% to 20% less than those who were US born.” Four out of five people in America who have no insurance are U.S. citizens.   The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research found that in 2005 one out of every five…

Affordability Index

Everyone knows that health insurance is getting more and more expensive.  But how can we measure how expensive it is?  A paper by UC-San Diego professors Richard Kronick and Todd Gilmer creates an “affordability index” to measure this.  The affordability index is equal to the per-capita, non-elderly health spending divided by the median income.  In…