In U.S., 11 Million Chronically Ill Lack Health Insurance

TUESDAY, Aug. 5 (HealthDay News) -- About 11.4 million adults in the United States with chronic conditions do not have health insurance, and they are less likely to visit a health professional and more likely to use the emergency department for care, according to an article in the Aug. 5 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Andrew P. Wilper, M.D., and colleagues from Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Mass., analyzed data on chronic conditions and access to care based on self-reported insurance status from 12,486 adults (aged 18 to 64 years) from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (1999-2004).

The researchers estimate that 11.4 million adults in the United States with chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension and diabetes are uninsured (ranging from 15.5 to 16.6 percent of people afflicted with these conditions). After controlling for a number of factors, uninsured chronically ill patients were significantly less likely than the insured to visit a health professional (6.2 versus 22.6 percent) and have a standard site for care (6.2 versus 26.1 percent), and were more likely to identify the emergency room as their standard site of care (7.1 versus 1.1 percent), the authors report.

"The article…tells us that chronic disease is rampant among uninsured persons," Marshall H. Chin, M.D., from the University of Chicago, writes in an accompanying editorial. "Caring for them in the United States is a major challenge, but we can start improving their outcomes now while we press for policies that ensure better access to health care."

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