Newswise — WASHINGTON (Feb. 6, 2012) – A new report from researchers at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation examines evidence on the use of health care by Americans, finding that all adults—including those without health insurance—are in the health care market. How and when the uninsured enter the market for health care, as well as the services they use despite being uninsured, has emerged as a critical underlying issue in the debate over whether Congress has the constitutional power to establish a minimum coverage requirement for nearly all Americans. “Longstanding Supreme Court precedent underscores the fact that Congress has the power to intervene when individual conduct affects markets,” noted Professor Sara Rosenbaum, J.D., the report’s lead author. “There is no question that when by choice or necessity the uninsured use health care, the consequences are enormous for their families, the communities in which they live, and the health care system as a whole.” Among the study’s findings:
• Data collected by the federal government on the use of health care show that regardless of insurance status, over a ten-year time period virtually every American adult will use health care.• Aging has an inexorable impact on health status. Over a fifteen-year time period, the proportion of young adults ages 24-39 who become unhealthy as a result of one or more physical health conditions rises from a low of slightly over 10 percent in year one to nearly 70 percent by year fifteen. In the case of adults ages 40-54 in year one, the figure will rise from slightly more than 20 percent to nearly 80 percent by year fifteen.• Injuries are unpredictable, and the potential for a major investment of resources is high. Among persons under age 65, more than one in thirteen non-fatal injuries involves not merely emergency department treatment but hospitalization or transfer to another hospital• Research has shown that although 99.7 percent of all U.S. births occur in hospitals, more than 425,000 women – one in ten – are uninsured in the month of delivery.
Professor Paula Lantz, Ph.D., a study co-author and Chair of the Department of Health Policy, added, “The empirical evidence is clear. All American adults use health care in both predictable and unpredictable ways. This includes those without health insurance coverage, who need health care at all ages and increasingly as they get older. The fact that the uninsured often need and receive expensive health care has serious consequences for both the health insurance and health care markets." The report, Examining the Evidentiary Basis of Congress’s Commerce Clause Power to Address Individuals’ Health Insurance Status, was first published in the February 3, 2012 online edition of the BNA Health Care Policy Report (print edition published February 6, 2012) and can be accessed by clicking here: http://www.gwumc.edu/sphhs/departments/healthpolicy/dhp_publications/pub_uploads/dhpPublication_4498D822-5056-9D20-3DD518ADA31C0156.pdf
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About the GW School of Public Health and Health ServicesEstablished in July 1997, the School of Public Health and Health Services brought together three longstanding university programs in the schools of medicine, business, and education that we have since expanded substantially. Today, more than 1,100 students from nearly every U.S. state and more than 40 nations pursue undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral-level degrees in public health. Our student body is one of the most ethnically diverse among the nation's private schools of public health. http://sphhs.gwumc.edu/
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