School Nurses' Perceptions and Practices of Assisting Students in Obtaining Public Health Insurance

BACKGROUND: From January through June 2009, 6.1 million children were uninsured in the United States. On average, students with health insurance are healthier and as a result are more likely to be academically successful. Some schools help students obtain health insurance with the help of school nurses. METHODS: This study assessed public school nurses' knowledge and beliefs of the impact of health insurance on students' health and academic success. The study also determined whether public school nurses or their schools were involved in helping students obtain public health insurance, and if so, how they did so. Additionally, the study assessed the public school nurses' perceived benefits of and barriers to helping students obtain public health insurance. A paper-and-pencil survey was sent to a national random sample of 750 public school nurses. The response rate was 56%. RESULTS: Nearly 60% of respondents had helped students enroll in public health insurance. The majority perceived that helping students obtain public health insurance would reduce school absenteeism (90%), improve attention during school (84%), reduce the number of students held back (80%), reduce school dropouts (72%), and increase academic test scores (69%). Although the majority (53%) of nurses thought schools should assist students' parents with filling out public health insurance enrollment forms, some expressed reservations about the process. CONCLUSION: School nurses indicated health insurance is important for the health and academic success of students. These beliefs are congruent with state Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP) directors' perceptions, yet few schools have taken on the role of facilitating student enrollment in public health insurance programs.     

Increasing Health Insurance Coverage in the First Year of Life

Objectives: To determine the proportion of infants who are uninsured and the sociodemographic characteristics of their mothers, including prenatal and post-partum insurance coverage, in order to identify strategies to increase infant health coverage. Methods: Data from the 2001 California Maternal and Infant Health Assessment (MIHA) were analyzed. MIHA is a cross-sectional survey of a statewide representative sample of 3,475 postpartum women. We calculated the proportion of uninsured infants overall and by several maternal characteristics. Adjusted and unadjusted odds ratios for infant uninsurance are reported. Results: In the overall study sample, 8.7% of infants were uninsured. Low-income infants were significantly more likely to be uninsured than infants in households with incomes above 200% of the federal poverty level (13.7% vs. 2.5%). The mother's prenatal and post-partum health coverage, her age, and family income were associated with an increased risk of infant uninsurance after adjustment for other maternal characteristics. A large majority of the uninsured infants (88.1%) were living in low-income families. The mothers of 60% of the uninsured infants were enrolled in Medicaid during the pregnancy. Conclusions: Approximately 14% of California's low-income infants were uninsured at the time of the survey despite being income-eligible for Medicaid. The proportion of uninsured infants could potentially be reduced by more than one-half through strategies to provide 12 month continuous enrollment of infants with federally mandated Medicaid eligibility for the first year of life.     

城镇医疗保险与社区卫生服务的政策对接研究

城镇医疗保险与社区卫生服务的政策对接是新医改的突破口。文章论证了城镇医疗保险与社区卫生服务的政策对接的重要意义,分析了城镇医疗保险与社区卫生服务的现状及存在的问题,提出了政策建议:确立医疗保险与社区卫生服务对接的法律地位,发挥法制的强制作用;加大政府的资金投入;统一管理机构;加强监督审核;发挥社区卫生服务与基本医疗保险的互补优势;进一步扩大基本医疗保险范围。     

社会医疗保险制度下的政策抉择

社会基疗保险是许多国家的卫生筹资形式，政策目标不仅体现在社会医疗保险的系统结构中，更重要的是体现在社会医疗实际运行中的政策抉择中，这些政策抉择集中反映了筹资强度，保险覆盖范围与优先项目，费用控制及服务提供的效率改善等相互联系的4个方面。     

Crowd-Out in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP): Incidence, Enrollee Characteristics and Experiences, and Potential Impact on New York's SCHIP

Background. The extent to which the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) crowds our private insurance is poorly understood.
Objective. To assess the incidence of crowd-out and enrollee characteristics associated with crowd-out.
Data. Parent telephone survey for 2,644 children after enrollment in NY SCHIP.
Measures and Analyses. Crowd-out is measured based on enrollee reports of coverage (and loss of coverage) before SCHIP. Multivariate logistic regression is used to relate crowd-out to enrollee characteristics.
Principal Findings. Only 7.1 percent of SCHIP enrollees dropped private coverage ≤6 months before SCHIP, suggesting relatively modest crowd-out. Crowd-out was associated with some enrollee traits including income, but not with health status.
Implications. Most movement from private to public insurance in NY was not crowd-out. Under current program structure in NY, crowd-out concerns should not dampen enthusiasm for SCHIP.     

Estimating Premium Sensitivity for Children's Public Health Insurance Coverage: Selection but No Death Spiral

ObjectiveTo estimate the effect of premium increases on the probability that near-poor and moderate-income children disenroll from public coverage.ConclusionsSuccess in achieving coverage gains through public programs is tempered by persistent problems in maintaining enrollment, which is modestly affected by premium increases. Retention is subject to adverse selection problems, but premium increases do not appear to significantly magnify the selection problem in this case.     

Assessing the Public Health Impact of State Health Benefit Mandates

Objective. To document the process used in assessing the public health impact of proposed health insurance benefit mandates in California as part of the California Health Benefits Review Program (CHBRP) to serve as a guide for other states interested in incorporating a public health impact analysis into their state mandated benefit review process.
Background. As of September 2004, of the 26 states that require reviews of mandated benefit legislation, 25 required an assessment of the cost impact, 12 required an assessment of the medical efficacy, and only 6 had language requiring an assessment of the public health impact.
Methodology. This paper presents the methodology used to calculate the overall public health impact of each mandate. This includes a discussion of data sources, required data elements, and the methods used to quantify the impact of a mandated health insurance benefit on: overall public health, on gender and racial disparities in health outcomes, on premature death, and on the economic loss associated with disease. In addition we identify the limitations of this type of analysis.
Conclusions. The approach that California has adopted to review proposed health benefit mandates represents a leap forward in its consideration of the impact of such mandates on the health of the population. the approach is unique in its specific requirements to address public health impacts as well as the attempt to quantify these impacts by the CHBRP team. The requirement to make available this information to the state government has the potential, ultimately, to increase the availability of health insurance products in California that will maximize public health.     

The Impact of Poverty,Chronic Illnesses,and Health Insurance Status on Out-of-Pocket Health Care Expenditures in Later Life

This study aims to examine poverty, chronic illnesses, health insurance, and health care expenditures, within the context of a political economy of aging perspective. Subsamples of 1,773 older adults from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey were selected for analyses. The results showed that chronic illnesses influenced out-of-pocket health care costs. Older persons with more than one health insurance spent less on out-of-pocket health care costs. The results have implications for health care social workers concerned with the growing costs of chronic illnesses, implementing integrated care, and advocating for extending public health insurance coverage especially for our most impoverished older adults.     

The Mandatory Health Insurance System in Chile: Explaining the Choice between Public and Private Insurance

In Chile, dependent workers and retirees are mandated by law to purchase health insurance, and can choose between private and public health insurance. This paper studies the determinants of the choice of health insurance. Earnings are generally considered the key factor in this choice, and we confirm this, but find that other factors are also important. It is particularly interesting to analyze how the individual's characteristics interact with the design of the system to influence choice. Worse health, as signaled by age or sex (e.g., older people or women in reproductive ages), results in adverse selection against the public health insurance system. This is due to the lack of risk adjustment of the public health insurance's premium. Hence, Chile's risk selection problem is, at least in part, due to the design of the Chilean public insurance system.     

医改对参保职工卫生服务公平性影响作用分析

通过对城镇参保职工卫生服务公平性的调查分析,在医改前后城镇参保职工基尼系数无差别的情况下,得出城镇参保职工健康、卫生服务的提供、可及性以及卫生服务筹资等方面都存在着不同程度的不公平性,除卫生服务筹资不公平性外,其他不公平性医改后均有所减少。本文在分析上述现象的基础上,提出相关建议。     

苏州市社会医疗保险在社区卫生服务中的影响分析

目的:了解苏州市社区卫生服务机构的业务收入与社会医疗保险情况及两者之间的关系。方法:对苏州市三个老城区所属的37家社区卫生服务机构的业务收入进行问卷调查及定性访谈。结果:在2006年度苏州市社区卫生服务的业务收入中,基本医疗收入所占的比重最大,在90%左右。而在基本医疗收入中,比例最高的依旧是药品收入,占业务总收入的80%左右。社会医疗保险对社区卫生服务机构的覆盖率是91.7%,对其业务收入的补偿在60%左右。苏州市三个老城区在社区卫生服务业务总收入和社会医疗保险的补偿方面均无统计学差异。结论:药品收入是社区卫生服务业务总收入的主要来源,社会医疗保险在社区卫生服务机构中的覆盖面较广、补偿程度较高。     

我国健康保险业发展现状研究综述

使用中国银行保险监督管理委员会网站、2012 2018年《中国保险年鉴》、各地区社会经济发展统计公报等公开数据分析我国健康保险业的发展现状,发现近年来我国健康保险市场不断发展,具体表现为保费增速快、保费增速领先其他人身险品种、对人身险保费增速的贡献提高;同时,市场主体日益多元、寡头垄断风险减弱、地区差异明显。北京地区健康保险市场发展经验表明在健康保险市场的发展过程中,政策引导、经济发展水平、消费意识、产业竞争和产业链结构缺一不可。     

Oral Health,Dental Insurance and Dental Service use in Australia

This study uses data from the 2004–2006 Australian National Survey of Adult Oral Health and a simultaneous equation framework to investigate the interrelationships between dental health, private dental insurance and the use of dental services. The results show that insurance participation is influenced by social and demographic factors, health and health behaviours. In turn, these factors affect the use of dental services, both directly and through insurance participation. Our findings confirm that affordability is a major barrier to visiting the dentist for oral health maintenance and treatment. Our results suggest that having supplementary insurance is associated with some 56 percentage points higher probability of seeing the dentist in the general population. For those who did not have private insurance cover, we predict that conditional on them facing the same insurance conditions, on average, having insurance would increase their visits to the dentist by 43 percentage points. The uninsured in the survey have lower income, worse oral health and lower rates of preventive and treatment visits. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Early Impact of the Affordable Care Act on Health Insurance Coverage of Young Adults

Research Objective

To evaluate one of the first implemented provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), which permits young adults up to age 26 to enroll as dependents on a parent''s private health plan. Nearly one-in-three young adults lacked coverage before the ACA.

Study Design, Methods, and Data

Data from the Current Population Survey 2005–2011 are used to estimate linear probability models within a difference-in-differences framework to estimate how the ACA affected coverage of eligible young adults compared to slightly older adults. Multivariate models control for individual characteristics, economic trends, and prior state-dependent coverage laws.

Principal Findings

This ACA provision led to a rapid and substantial increase in the share of young adults with dependent coverage and a reduction in their uninsured rate in the early months of implementation. Models accounting for prior state dependent expansions suggest greater policy impact in 2010 among young adults who were also eligible under a state law.

Conclusions and Implications

ACA-dependent coverage expansion represents a rare public policy success in the effort to cover the uninsured. Still, this policy may have later unintended consequences for premiums for alternative forms of coverage and employer-offered rates for young adult workers.     

美国公共医疗保险的影响效应分析

作为美国医疗保险市场的重要组成部分,公共医疗保险近年来在市场上占据了相当可观的份额,并显现出强劲增长的态势。文章通过相关文献厘清目前美国公共医疗保险所产生的一系列影响,进而关注美国公共医疗保险的影响情况和溢出效应,并提出在未来研究公共医疗保险时应当着重考虑的方向和突破的重点难点问题,以及由此对我国医疗保险改革的经验借鉴。     

Public Health Insurance Enrollment among Immigrants and Nonimmigrants: Findings from the 2001 California Health Interview Survey

We examine whether adult immigrants in California had the same likelihood of having public health insurance as nonimmigrants with comparable characteristics, using 44,434 non-elderly adult samples of the 2001 California Health Interview Survey public use data. Multinomial logistic regression was used to assess the likelihood of public health insurance relative to private (employment-based or privately purchased) health insurance by generation status, controlling for individual characteristics. The outcome of interest was public health insurance among three health insurance categories: private health insurance, public health insurance, and uninsured. Both first and second generation immigrants were more likely to have public health insurance than were nonimmigrants. However, the difference vanished, when demography, socioeconomic status, health status, employment sector, and English facility were controlled for. The combined effect of lower returns to education and lower employment-based insurance offer rates seems to be the underlying cause of higher prevalence of public health insurance among ethnic minorities.     

Health Insurance and the Homeless

There is very little known about health care utilization among the homeless or about the role of health insurance on utilization patterns. Many health care reform proposals advocate expanding health insurance coverage for various segments of society, including the homeless. Although homeless people who lack health insurance face strong financial barriers to health services, providing them with health insurance may not appreciably increase their demand for health care if they also face important non-financial barriers. We investigate the relationship between insurance and utilization for this group based on estimates from an empirical model of medical care use and insurance coverage. Using our estimates, we simulate potential effects of policy changes on various types of utilization, including use of mental health services and treatment for alcohol or other drug abuse. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Impact of National Health Insurance on the Utilization of Health Care Services by Pregnant Women: The Case in Taiwan

Objectives: Substantially increased funding for health care services occurred in Taiwan after the implementation of a national health insurance plan in 1995. This study attempts to examine the impact of this national health insurance plan on the utilization of prenatal and intrapartum care services. Methods: Nationally representative surveys of all pregnant women in Taiwan in 1989 (1,662 participants) and in 1996 (3,626 participants) were included in the analysis. We first compared the distribution of birth characteristics between the two surveys. We then calculated the rate of utilization of various prenatal and intrapartum care services in the two surveys in the overall sample and in subsamples, stratified by maternal education, age, and parity. Results: The utilization of most prenatal and intrapartum care services, especially the complicated laboratory tests, increased in 1996 compared to 1989. For example, the proportion of women who received amniocentesis increased from 1.62% in 1989 to 5.60% in 1996 and German measles testing increased from 5.96% to 27.11%. By contrast, the proportion of women who received consultation services was stable over time, or for family planning, consultation declined from 33.21% to 27.00%. These changes in utilization over time were consistently observed across different maternal education, age, and parity groups. Conclusions: The utilization of prenatal and intrapartum care services, especially for the more expensive services, has substantially increased in Taiwan since the implementation of the national health insurance. For countries considering similar national health insurance plan, it may be helpful to consider cost-containing measures before the implementation of such a plan.     

社区卫生服务与医疗保险的经济良性循环研究

随着医学模式，疾病谱和人口年龄结构的改变，为了保证城镇职工的基本医疗和有效控制卫生费用，必须使社区卫生服务与医疗保险协调发展，优势互补，形成两者的良性循环。在保证社会效益的前提下，应制定和完善相关政策，探讨解决影响社区卫生服务和医疗保险衔接的办法。