Regulations, Forms & Other Useful Documents
Americans at Risk: One in Three Uninsured
Sponsoring organization: Families USA
Offers a closer look at the number of Americans without health insurance and discusses the major underlying reasons for the growth in the number of uninsured.
Date: 03 / 2009
Approaches to Covering the Uninsured: A Guide
Author(s): Jennifer Tolbert, Jack Ebeler, Tanya Schwartz
Sponsoring organization: Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured
Explains the key strategies for expanding coverage to the nation's 45 million uninsured people and explains how different policy options can be combined to form comprehensive reform proposals.
Date: 12 / 2008
Causes and Consequences of the Rural Uninsured and Underinsured
Author(s): Joe Blankenau, Jon M. Bailey, Julia Hudson
Sponsoring organization: Center for Rural Affairs
Details health insurance coverage in rural America. Includes how rural citizens get insurance coverage and how it differs from urban America, reviews research that explores obstacles in attaining health insurance, addresses the problem of underinsurance, and explores the impact of inadequate financing for health care and its effects on the community. Concludes that health care reform must address the employer-sponsored health insurance system.
Date: 04 / 2009
Chartbook #13: Health Care in Urban and Rural Areas, Combined Years 1998-2000
Author(s): Sharon L. Larson, Steven R. Machlin, Alice Nixon, Marc Zodet
Sponsoring organization: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Examines the differences in health care access, use, and expenses between urban and rural areas. Counties are classified along the urban-rural continuum according to whether they are metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) and, if not, their proximity to an MSA. An MSA is a large population nucleus with a high degree of economic and social interaction. The categories along the continuum are metro (counties in an MSA), near-metro, near-rural, and rural.
Date: 06 / 2004
Five Basic Facts on the Uninsured
Sponsoring organization: Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured
Provides basic facts that explain why 47 million people in the U.S. lack health insurance and how this affects their health and financial security.
Date: 08 / 2008
Health Care in Rural America
Sponsoring organization: Center for Rural Affairs
Discusses issues related to health insurance coverage and health care costs of rural people. Includes information on the rural uninsured and undersinsured and discusses possible solutions to provide health insurance coverage to the rural uninsured and underinsured.
Date: 10 / 2004
Health Coverage in a Period of Rising Unemployment
Author(s): Karyn Schwartz
Sponsoring organization: Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured
Reviews the public and private options available to help people maintain coverage if they become unemployed cannot get employer-sponsored coverage through a spouse. Examines COBRA, non-group insurance and Medicaid.
Date: 12 / 2008
Health Information Exchange: The Role of Safety-Net Providers
Author(s): Suzanne Felt-Lisk, Melanie Au, Patricia Higgins
Sponsoring organization: Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.
An issue brief that reviews lessons learned from a 13-member panel convened to discuss barriers and catalysts safety-net providers face in integrating health information exchange (HIE).
Date: 06 / 2009
Health Insurance Coverage for Older Adults: Implications of a Medicare Buy-In
Author(s): Gretchen Jacobson, Karyn Schwartz, Tricia Neuman
Sponsoring organization: Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured
Examines the barriers to securing affordable coverage in the current marketplace for uninsured people ages 55 to 65, as well as the potential for a Medicare buy-in to improve the group’s health insurance coverage rate.
Date: 05 / 2009
Health Insurance Coverage in Rural America: Chartbook
Author(s): Erika C. Ziller, Andrew F. Coburn, Stephenie L. Loux, Catherine Hoffman, Timothy D. McBride
Sponsoring organization: Kaiser Family Foundation
Information on rural-urban differences in health insurance coverage and differences in socio-economic and employment characteristics of those living in rural versus urban counties.
Date: 09 / 2003
Hidden Link: Health Costs and Family Economic Insecurity
Sponsoring organization: Families USA
Identifies how health care costs and medical debt affects family economic security.
Date: 01 / 2009
Impact of the Recession on Rural America: Rising Unemployment Leading to More Uninsured in 2009
Author(s): Timothy McBride, Leah Kemper
Sponsoring organization: RUPRI Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis
Presents the results of state and county analysis of unemployment rates nationally in urban and rural (non-metropolitan) areas over the period 2007-February 2009 and discusses the impact of rising unemployment on uninsurance in rural areas.
Date: 06 / 2009
Impact of Welfare Reform on Health Insurance Coverage in Rural Areas
Author(s): Timothy D. McBride, Courtney Andrews
Sponsoring organization: RUPRI Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis
Discusses the impact that welfare reform had on health insurance coverage for rural and urban areas. Includes information on employment status and health insurance coverage.
Date: 12 / 2005
Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007
Author(s): Carmen DeNavas-Walt, Bernadette D. Proctor, Jessica C. Smith
Sponsoring organization: U.S. Census Bureau
Provides the latest income, poverty, and health insurance data from the Current Population Survey. Includes state level data.
Date: 08 / 2008
Low-Income Adults Under Age 65 — Many are Poor, Sick, and Uninsured
Sponsoring organization: Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured
Focuses on the low-income adult population, a group of over 50 million who are at
high risk of losing their health insurance coverage or are already uninsured.
Date: 06 / 2009
Profile of Rural Health Insurance Coverage: A Chartbook
Author(s): Jennifer D. Lenardson, Erika C. Ziller, Andrew F. Coburn, Nathaniel J. Anderson
Sponsoring organization: Maine Rural Health Research Center
Provides information on the health insurance
status of rural Americans under the age of 65. Includes recent estimates and changes since 1997 in rural health insurance coverage; differences in the demographic, socio-economic, employment and other risk factors for uninsurance among rural and urban residents; demographic and economic characteristics and employment differences of the rural and urban uninsured; and policy implications for covering the rural uninsured.
Date: 06 / 2009
Rural Coverage Gaps Decline Following Public Health Insurance Expansions
Author(s): Ericka Ziller, Andrew Coburn
Sponsoring organization: Maine Rural Health Research Center
Assesses how uninsured rates and sources of coverage have changed since the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) was enacted. Compares the health insurance coverage of rural and urban residents in 1997 and 2005. Discusses implications for health insurance reform
Date: 02 / 2009
Rural Residents More Likely to be Underinsured
Sponsoring organization: Maine Rural Health Research Center
Multiple studies have demonstrated that rural residents, particularly those living far from urban areas, have high uninsured rates. However, even those with private health insurance coverage can be at risk of having high out-of-pocket health care costs. Understanding the degree to which rural residents are "underinsured" has important implications for rural health policy and practice.
Date: 2006
Rural Workers Would Benefit from Unemployment Insurance Modernization
Author(s): Anne Shattuck
Sponsoring organization: Carsey Institute
Suggests that rural workers can benefit if states adjust their unemployment insurance plans to include part-time employees because, on average, there is a higher number of part-time employees in rural areas.
Date: 05 / 2009
Rural-Urban Comparison of a Building Blocks Approach to Covering the Uninsured (Policy Brief)
Author(s): Timothy McBride
Sponsoring organization: RUPRI Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis
Uses a health insurance model to compare the effects of a building blocks approach on health insurance coverage and health spending, focusing on the geographic differences (by metropolitan and non-metropolitan) of this approach.
Date: 06 / 2009
State of the States: Rising to the Challenge
Sponsoring organization: AcademyHealth
Discusses the number of uninsured in each state. Includes a section on “Access Barriers Persist in Rural Areas” on pages 12-13.
Date: 01 / 2008
Study Shows Uninsured Receive Less Care and Experience Worse Outcomes
Author(s): Jack Hadley
Sponsoring organization: American Medical Association
Documents that people who are uninsured receive less care and have worse outcomes following an accident or the onset of a new chronic condition than those with insurance.
Date: 03 / 2007
Trends in Uninsurance Among Rural Minority Children: Key Facts
Sponsoring organization: South Carolina Rural Health Research Center
This is the Key Facts from the report. While efforts to reduce the number of children lacking health insurance, such as SCHIP,
have demonstrated much success, there continue to be pronounced disparities among both minority and
rural children in having health insurance coverage.
Date: 2005
Uninsured and Medicaid Patients’ Access to Preventive Care: Comparison of Health Centers and Other Primary Care Providers
Author(s): Avi Dor, Yuriy Pylypchuck, Peter Shin, Sara Rosenbaum
Examines health centers’ role in reducing disparities in preventive health care access by medically vulnerable and high risk populations.
Date: 08 / 2008
Uninsured: A Primer; Key Facts About Americans Without Health Insurance
Sponsoring organization: Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured
Reviews the basic profile of the uninsured population, how they receive care, the latest trends in health insurance coverage, and what the options are for increasing coverage.
Date: 10 / 2008
Terms & Acronyms
CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) Federal agency responsible for the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Part of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
Medicaid Federal assistance program that helps pay for medically necessary services for needy and low income individuals. The program uses state and federal funds to compensate medical providers serving these populations.
Medicare Federal health care insurance program for most adults age 65 and older and certain disabled individuals. It pays for long term care under limited circumstances and for limited periods of time.
Safety Net Support for healthcare. External support consists of local taxes, state and federal aid, and private programs or donations. Internal strategies adopted by health care facilities include increasing or stabilizing the supply of physicians in the community, changing the scope of services, forging cooperative relationships with other rural providers, and merging with providers outside the community.
SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) A State and Federal partnership to help children without health insurance, many of whom come from working families with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid but too low to afford private health insurance.
Underinsured People with public or private insurance policies that do not cover all necessary medical services, resulting in out-of-pocket expenses that exceed their ability to pay.
