Lack Of Health Insurance Overstated In Arizona

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 29 Nov 2007 - 2:00 PDT

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Federal surveys overstate the number of Arizonans without health insurance, according to a study released today by the Center for Health Information & Research (CHIR) in the School of Computing and Informatics at Arizona State University.

The study shows that the federal survey most frequently used to estimate the number of uninsured overstates the size of the problem in Maricopa County by approximately 6 to 12 percent.

The center used information from its database, Arizona HealthQuery (AZHQ), which contains data on health care visits by millions of individuals. The database has been established through the cooperation of more than 50 health care providers and insurers in the state.

CHIR estimated the number of uninsured persons in each zip code in Maricopa County. The estimates, based on much larger numbers of Arizona residents than the samples used by federal surveys, show that between approximately 226,000 and 429,000 persons were uninsured in 2004, compared to more than 646,000 uninsured adults estimated from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey.

Reliance on the Census Bureau survey leads policy makers to overestimate the costs of efforts to expand health insurance coverage and sets targets for the enrollment of uninsured Arizona residents that can never be met, said CHIR director William Johnson.

The data confirms earlier studies by the center in Yuma County, which found similar overstatements of the numbers of uninsured children, Johnson said.

It was widely believed that 25 percent of Yuma's children were uninsured. The estimates from the much larger AZHQ database cut that figure in half.

Both studies demonstrate the power of a cooperative, locally based data-sharing effort to provide information that can be used to improve the health and health care of Arizona residents, Johnson said.

By providing accurate estimates for small geographic areas, the current report puts the problem of the uninsured in a more realistic framework than do national surveys and ad hoc estimates, he said.

"Setting realistic targets for outreach in identified areas permits outreach efforts to focus their resources on the areas where the potential benefits are greatest," Johnson said. "It also informs the public concerning the true costs of extending health insurance as a method of improving access to regular care and reducing reliance on the use of emergency departments for non-urgent conditions."

Johnson said he hopes that the information will be used by state policy makers to both evaluate and plan for their responses to the problem of uninsured Arizona residents.

Copies of this report and CHIR's other publications can be obtained on CHIR's website at http://chir.asu.edu.

The School of Computing and Informatics is part of ASU's Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering.

Arizona State University