Eroding Access Among Nonelderly U.S. Adults With Chronic Conditions: Ten Years Of Change
By Catherine Hoffman and Karyn Schwartz
Health Affairs
July 22, 2008
More than 40 percent of the U.S. population lives with one or more chronic conditions. However, because people with chronic conditions have greater health needs than others, they account for three-quarters of all personal medical care spending in this country. We focused on nonelderly adults with chronic conditions.
Both the connection to health care and its affordability worsened for many nonelderly U.S. adults living with chronic conditions between 1997 and 2006. This erosion varied by health insurance coverage. Access to care among uninsured adults with chronic conditions deteriorated on all of our basic measures between 1997 and 2006. In addition, more of both the privately and publicly insured with chronic conditions went without health care because of its cost over this ten-year span.
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/hlthaff.27.5.w340/DC1
It would have been sad if this report had demonstrated that there had been no improvement in access and affordability in the past decade for this expensive, non-elderly population with chronic conditions. What it did show is that access and affordability deteriorated further, even amongst the insured. That’s not sad; that’s tragic.
Obviously our national health policies are not working. Dare anyone suggest that we change them?