The impact of demographic and perceptual variables on a young adult's decision to be covered by private health insurance (original) (raw)
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An Analysis of the Health Insurance Coverage of Young Adults
2010
The purpose of the present study is to examine the determinants of health insurance coverage for young adults. Results of the present study suggest that socioeconomic factors are most important in determining which young adults have health insurance and which do not. If a person is a young, African-American male, who lives in the South, and does not have a full-time job, then that person, in all likelihood, will not have health insurance. Although the specific reasons a person does not have health insurance may vary, it is no doubt due to the cost of the insurance and to the belief that health insurance is unnecessary because the person is healthy.
Young adults in Massachusetts: Who is at risk of being uninsured?
Journal of Adolescent Health, 2004
To identify sociodemographic factors associated with being uninsured among young adults in a state sample (Massachusetts) and to examine the independent association of insurance status with the young adult's reporting no health maintenance visit (check-up) in the past 2 years or reporting an inability to afford needed health care in the last 12 months. Methods: Secondary analysis of data from the Massachusetts Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System for the years 1998-2000. In this cross-sectional study, data were examined for 1673 19-to 24-years-olds who provided information on sociodemographic variables, health insurance status, perceived inability to afford care, and health care use. Multiple logistic regression was used to estimate the odds of being uninsured. Subsequently, multiple logistic regression was used to estimate the odds of having no checkup in the last 2 years and of reporting the inability to afford needed health care in the last year. Results: 15% of young adults were uninsured, including 20% of males and 10% of females. For both genders, the adjusted odds of being uninsured were lower for students and higher for those with a household income between 15,000and15,000 and 15,000and24,999. Uninsured young men, but not women, had significantly higher odds of not having a routine checkup in the last 2 years. Uninsured young adults of both genders had significantly higher odds of reporting the inability to afford needed care in the past 12 months. Conclusions: Programs and policies that seek to reduce the rates of uninsured young adults should especially target males and nonstudents. Improving health insurance coverage, especially for young adult males, may be associated with improved preventive health care access.
Some demographic issues affecting private health insurance
Australian Health Review, 2004
There will be significant changes in the demography of persons with Private Health Insurance (PHI). Two methods of projecting PHI coverage are discussed in this paper. The first assumes the only factors affecting PHI coverage are demographic change and mortality, and facilitates comparisons between actual and projected PHI coverage. The second projects the percentage of the population insured in each five year age cohort, and makes allowance for changes in PHI coverage due to all factors. Demographic change will increase Registered Health Benefit Organization (RHBO) premiums by 1.7% per annum. The role of these projections in analysing the effect of future premium increases on PHI retention rates is also discussed.
The Effect of Health Insurance Coverage on the Use of Medical Services
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2012
Substantial uncertainty exists regarding the causal effect of health insurance on the utilization of care. Most studies cannot determine whether the large differences in healthcare utilization between the insured and the uninsured are due to insurance status or to other unobserved differences between the two groups. In this paper, we exploit a sharp change in insurance coverage rates that results from young adults "aging out" of their parents' insurance plans to estimate the effect of insurance coverage on the utilization of emergency department (ED) and inpatient services. Using the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and a census of emergency department records and hospital discharge records from seven states, we find that aging out results in an abrupt 5 to 8 percentage point reduction in the probability of having health insurance. We find that not having insurance leads to a 40 percent reduction in ED visits and a 61 percent reduction in inpatient hospital admissions. The drop in ED visits and inpatient admissions is due entirely to reductions in the care provided by privately owned hospitals, with particularly large reductions at for profit hospitals. The results imply that expanding health insurance coverage would result in a substantial increase in care provided to currently uninsured individuals.
2020
Background: Since the introduction in 1984 of Australia’s publicly-funded universal healthcare system, Medicare, healthcare financing has relied on a mix of public and private sources to meet the needs of the population [1]. However, in recent years, there has been a decline in the number of Australians choosing to purchase private health insurance (PHI), particularly within the young adult age group with the proportion of insurance customers aged 20 to 29 falling from 10.3% to 9.4% between 2012 and 2017 [2]. Young adults are critical to private health insurance funding models as their involvement offsets the drawdown by older adults[3]. While this issue is widely reported in the Australian media, few empirical studies have explored the factors that enable or constrain young adults’ enrolment in PHI. Methods: To address the scarcity of research about the motivational factors behind young adult decision-making, this study conducted a survey of 594 Australian young adults aged between...
College students' perceptions and experiences with health insurance
Journal of the National Medical Association, 2010
Most research on perceptions of health insurance has examined gender- and race-based differences across sections of the adult population. This is the first study to examine differences based on demographic characteristics of undergraduate college students' coverage and perceptions of health insurance. The participants were undergraduates at 12 of the 13 public universities in Ohio. Valid and reliable 40-item questionnaires (n = 1800) were equally distributed to faculty at 12 public universities. A total of 1367 (70%) surveys were completed. Most students (59.9%) believed that the federal government should have the primary responsibility to ensure that Americans have health insurance and 53.3% felt that the best way was through universal health insurance from the federal government. Perceptions varied by race, political affiliation, and health insurance status. Undergraduate students appear to have formed opinions about health insurance similar to general adult populations. These...
Journal of Health Communication, 2007
Numbers of the uninsured in America have risen in the past few years to more than 40 million people, yet relatively little is known about their health communication behaviors. Data from the 2003 Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) were used to analyze the relationship among demographics, health status, health insurance status, online health seeking, and amount of attention paid to various media for health. A random sample of 6,369 Americans indicated several statistically significant differences between the insured and uninsured: the uninsured were more likely younger, less educated, and Hispanic. Findings also indicated that those without health insurance reported being less healthy and more distressed and hold a greater risk perception for cancer, compared with their insured counterparts. Health insurance, when controlling for demographics and health status, explained a statistically significant but small amount of variance in both online health seeking and attention to health messages in various other media.