New Study Indicates That Newly Insured Americans are Healthier
January 1, 2008
Those Americans who qualify for retiree public health insurance are healthier after spending years in the absence of medical insurance. This is the core finding of a report in the JAMA - the Journal of the American Medical Association. This comes in the backdrop of 15 percent of the US population going without medical insurance.
The subjects of the study were 7,233 people from 55 to 72 years old and the study lasted for 12 years. This shows that there is a link between health insurance and an improvement in health.
In the sample, out of every 100 people who did not have health insurance before qualifying for Medicare who had heart disease or diabetes before the age of 65, there were fewer incidents of heart attacks or heart failure by the age of 72.
The authors of this study had earlier published another study that showed that adults who are uninsured and who gain Medicare coverage cost the system more than people who are continuously insured.
WIth the help of these two studies a conclusion can be reached that by expanding health coverage the resulting costs may be less than expected and the health benefits are greater than expected as well.
