"Churning" Is Big Insurance Problem
A new study finds 85 million Americans cycled on and off health insurance
at some time between 1996 to 1999 -- a problem called "churning."
The Commonwealth
Fund paid for the study, which found more than two-thirds of those considered
low income had no health insurance at some point during the four-year period
in which the insurance status of 40,000 people was tracked on a monthly
basis.
This instability
in health insurance has serious medical consequences, said Dr. Benjamin
K. Chu, president of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corp.
Patients who
suffer from chronic diseases do not get the continuity of care that can
manage their disease and those with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses
do not get the diagnostics and treatment available to them.
"There is just
no way you can get good management when there are such episodic contacts
with the healthcare system," Chu said during a conference about the study.
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Copyright 2003 by United
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