Regional variation in health insurance coverage.
Academic Article
Overview
Research
Identity
Additional Document Info
Other
View All
Overview
abstract
Little effort has been devoted to identifying the effects of insurance coverage on the observed variations in regional utilization. This has resulted in part from a lack of reliable insurance data and data to link utilization with detailed information on coverage. This article constitutes a first step toward such an analysis. We summarize the extend of regional variation in health services utilization and then examine these differences in light of rather remarkable differences in the extent of employer-sponsored health insurance coverage. To be sure, other factors play major roles in explaining regional variation, yet our results suggest that differences in the pattern of private insurance coverage are worthy of consideration as well.