One really interesting finding is this affected both uninsured people in lower-income and higher-income households. Rates of debt were actually highest among those with higher incomes.
Obviously, this is an age where chronic conditions start popping up. This raises concerns about people's ability to maintain their health as they move toward retirement and toward Medicare.
People not being able to take care of themselves should send out a big red flag.
This really leaves one concerned about the ability of us as a society to manage chronic conditions that ultimately become very costly to families and to the health system.
Few people in these plans would recommend them to friends or co-workers. By focusing exclusively on the demand side, incentives give disproportionate responsibility on cost control to people with health problems or lower incomes.
What's surprising is the instability of coverage across low and moderate incomes. There is a sense of some risk and some high cost burdens among both low- and moderate-income working households in this age group.
Young adults probably have the weakest connection to employer-based coverage. They're more likely to get jobs that are low wage, part time or with small businesses that can't offer insurance.
This is basically a working group actively saving for retirement. We wanted to see whether they had health coverage, where they got coverage, and what their out-of-pocket costs were like and what that meant for access to care.
Allowing Medicare buy-in for caregivers of Medicare beneficiaries, or tax credits for caregivers' medical expenses, could ease their financial burden.
It's a cause for concern that this problem is obviously spreading into more moderate-income households. It's reflective of the fact that more employers are not offering coverage.
It represents an explosion of the insurance crisis into those with moderate incomes.
That raises some concerns about the decisions people are making when faced with high out-of-pocket expenses.
If you don't get it through your employer, you don't have many options for affordable coverage. That means you have huge numbers of people who don't have consistent, affordable access to the healthcare system.
In the absence of doing broader system reform and more universal coverage, this policy at least addresses the most tenuous time in terms of health care?entrance into the labor market, Rite of Passage? Why Young Adults Become Uninsured and How New Policies Can Help.
The uninsured are more likely to go without preventative care or screening tests that could prevent more serious and costly health problems.
These findings paint a disturbing picture of the day-to-day impact of being uninsured on the physical as well as financial health of millions of Americans.
Among adults who have the consumer-driven health plans, we are finding lower satisfaction with quality of care, out-of-pocket costs, and a low satisfaction in their plans overall.
