Article on health care services beyond common man reach
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Health care is not the only, or even the strongest, determinant of health, but it is very important. For most Americans, having health insurance— under a private plan or through a publicly financed program—is a threshold requirement for routine access to health care. “Health insurance coverage is associated with better health outcomes for adults. It is also associated with having a regular source of care and with greater and more appropriate use of health services. These factors, in turn, improve the likelihood of disease screening and early detection, the management of chronic illness, and the effective treatment of acute conditions,” IOM notes in a recent report (IOM, 2002a: 6).
Private insurance is predominantly purchased through employment-based groups and to a lesser extent through individual policies (Mills, 2002). Publicly funded insurance is provided primarily through seven government programs (see Table 5–1). Medicare provides coverage to 13.5 percent of the population, whereas Medicaid covers 11.2 percent of the population (Mills, 2002). Additionally, public funding supports directly