Children in higher income families are less likely than poor children to be without a regular source of health care. However, insurance coverage makes a real difference for poor children in terms of access to health care. Among all poor children under six years of age, 21 percent of those without health insurance had no usual source of care, compared with 4 percent of poor children covered by i...

A Bayesian Updating Approach to Crop Insurance Ratemaking by Stephen Milton Stohs Doctor of Philosophy in Agricultural and Resource Economics University of California, Berkeley Professor Peter Berck, Chair The U.S. government operates the multiple peril crop insurance (MPCI) program to provide farmers with comprehensive protection against yield risk due to weather-related causes of loss and cer...

Health spending growth in the United States is projected to average 5.8 percent for 2014-24, reflecting the Affordable Care Act's coverage expansions, faster economic growth, and population aging. Recent historically low growth rates in the use of medical goods and services, as well as medical prices, are expected to gradually increase. However, in part because of the impact of continued cost-s...

food insecurity, as a multi-faceted problem with far-reaching health and societal consequences, is prevalent among disadvantaged households. household food insecurity has made the notion operationally useful in the design, implementation, and evaluation of programs and policies. this study was to investigate the socio-demographic associates contributing to severity of food insecurity among vuln...

The private health insurance industry collected $47.1 billion in premiums in 1977 and returned $41.6 billion in benefits to their subscribers. Premiums rose 16.3 percent as a direct consequence of rapid claims growth in 1976. After operating expenses were deducted, the industry showed a small, $.4 billion underwriting loss. About 78 percent of the population were insured for hospital care, and ...

The adoption of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) in 1997 spurred widespread efforts to simplify and revitalize Medicaid coverage for children. To an extent often not recognized, these Medicaid improvements were a key factor behind much of the progress that has been made in covering low-income children: These children's uninsurance rate dropped from 22.3 percent in 1997 to 1...

Medicaid spending increased dramatically during the 1990s, driven in part by spending for prescription drugs. From 1990 to 2000, Medicaid drug spending increased from $4.4 billion to over $20 billion, an average annual increase of 16.3 percent. Disabled persons experienced an even greater 20 percent average annual increase. By drug category in 1997 (for 29 States), the highest spending amount w...

In 2013 health spending growth is expected to have remained slow, at 3.6 percent, as a result of the sluggish economic recovery, the effects of sequestration, and continued increases in private health insurance cost-sharing requirements. The combined effects of the Affordable Care Act's coverage expansions, faster economic growth, and population aging are expected to fuel health spending growth...

BACKGROUND Measles was declared eliminated from the United States in 2000 but remains endemic worldwide. In 2005, a 17-year-old unvaccinated girl who was incubating measles returned from Romania, creating the largest documented outbreak of measles in the United States since 1996. METHODS We conducted a case-series investigation, molecular typing of viral isolates, surveys of rates of vaccinat...