Women generally have been paying higher health care costs than men for many years, and this trend appears to be continuing or worsening since the major economic downturn began in 2008, according to Susan Busch, associate professor of health policy in the Yale School of Public Health.
Busch believes women’s use of out-of-network services might explain, at least in part, this discrepancy. (more…)
*A new study of health insurance in nine Chinese provinces shows that individual coverage surged within a two-year time frame, from 2004-2006, coinciding with new government interventions designed to improve access to health care. The changes were most dramatic in rural areas.*
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Health care coverage increased dramatically in parts of China between 1997 and 2006, a period when government interventions were implemented to improve access to health care, with particularly striking upswings in rural areas, according to new research by Brown University sociologist Susan E. Short and Hongwei Xu of the University of Michigan. The findings appear in the December issue of Health Affairs.
Led by Xu, a former Brown graduate student, the study analyzed data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, which follows households in nine provinces that are home to more than 40 percent of China’s population. Xu and Short specifically focused on patterns of coverage among rural and urban residents. (more…)
Most Americans receive health insurance coverage through their employer, or through an employed family member’s dependent coverage. Yet having a job is no guarantee of coverage, according to a new policy brief from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.
Using data from the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), the brief’s authors found that one-fifth of Californians under age 65 who lived in households with at least one employed family member — or 5.7 million – had no access to job-based health insurance in 2007.(more…)