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Access to health care measures accessibility to needed primary care, health care specialists and emergency treatment. While having health insurance is a crucial step toward accessing the health care system, health insurance by itself does not ensure access. It is also necessary to have comprehensive coverage, providers that accept the individual’s health insurance, relatively close proximity of providers to patients, and primary care providers in the community.
There are additional barriers to access for some because they do not have transportation to providers’ offices, lack of knowledge about preventive care, long waits to get an appointment, low health literacy, and inability to pay the high-deductible of many insurance plans or co-pays for receiving treatment.
The National Health Interview Survey found that from January to September 2011, 46.6 million people–or about 15 percent–were uninsured, 59.3 million people—or nearly 20 percent–were uninsured for a portion of the year prior to the interview.
Dallas County has one of the highest uninsured rates of all U.S. urban counties at 32 percent. A quarter of Tarrant County’s population lacks insurance. Collin and Denton counties have among the state’s lowest rates at 17 and 18 percent, respectively. Texas leads the nation in percentage of uninsured population at 26 percent.
Published by D Healthcare Daily
