Health Disparities and Equity in Health Care

When policy makers and researchers consider potential solutions to the crisis of uninsurance in the United States, the question of whether health insurance matters to health is often an issue. This question is far more than an academic concern. It is crucial that U.S. health care policy be informed with current and valid evidence on the consequences of uninsurance for health care and health outcomes, especially for the 45.7 million individuals without health insurance.

Many Americans believe that people who lack health insurance somehow get the care they really need.

Roughly 40 million Americans have no health insurance, private or public, and the number has grown steadily over the past 25 years. Who are these children, women, and men, and why do they lack coverage for essential health care services?

Hidden Cost, Value Lost, the fifth of a series of six books on the consequences of uninsurance in the United States, illustrates some of the economic and social losses to the country of maintaining so many people without health insurance.

'Scaling Up Affordable Health Insurance: Staying the Course' is the fifth volume in a series of in-depth reviews on the role of health care financing in improving access for low-income populations to needed care, protecting them from the impoverishing effects of illness, and addressing the important issues of social exclusion in government financed programs.