Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, August, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

I estimate two models of consumer health insurance choices where individual attributes and e.g., income, age, gender, cost, etc. affect qualification for specific programs e.g., Medicaid and Medicare, but also affect the choices individuals make. From these results, I assess how these attributes affect health insurance choices using the 2008 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. I then use these results to predict how individual health insurance choices change with the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2014. My predictions estimate that more 50 percent of those who become eligible for Medicaid under ACA will switch to Medicaid or choose to have both Private and Medicaid insurance.

Thesis (MTech (Public Relations Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2011. / The purpose of this limited scope research study is to investigate the research question "What are the internal communication needs of the Cape Town based employees at Metropolitan Health Group?" The research will investigate whether the current internal communication practise/s and communication content at Metropolitan Health Group satisfy the needs of employees. The research will be informed by the Downs and Hazen (1977:72) factor analytic study of communication satisfaction which concluded that "the concept of satisfaction can be a useful tool in an audit of organisational communication."

The purpose of this study will be to determine the evolution and present form of accident and health insurance in the United States.

Health insurance has become essential in mediating the extremely high costs of childbirth; however, it has been neglected in fertility research. This study examines health insurance coverage as an economic determinant of fertility and includes discussions of the cost of raising children, contraception and childbirth as well as opportunity costs to illustrate that the effect of health insurance may differ by resources, such as income and education. Using data from the 2001 Survey of Income and Program Participation, I analyze the effects of insurance on the probability of pregnancy and birth with Discrete-Time Hazard Models. Results show that health insurance is a powerful indicator of fertility. Married women with insurance coverage, especially private insurance coverage provided by someone else's plan, coverage in own name or public insurance, have increased expected odds of fertility compared to uninsured women.

Each year the number of uninsured individuals in the United States continues to grow. This unfortunate occurrence creates negative consequences for those who are uninsured, but also for those who are covered by health insurance plans. Through cost-shifting practices, hospitals and other healthcare organizations are increasing the cost of other healthcare services to help subsidize the care they must provide for those who cannot pay for that care. There have been attempts to solve this problem, but a successful solution has not been implemented. Rather than attempt to study the entire uninsured population, this study seeks to determine precisely why young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 are the largest segment of our population that does not purchase health insurance. Socioeconomic status, perceived health, cost, gender, race, and perceived need are all examined in order to determine what type of relationship each one has with a young adult's decision to purchase private health insurance. Structural equation modeling is used to analyze data obtained from the 2005 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. This study is unique because is includes latent variables and examines a variable that is not often included in health insurance studies that exist in the literature, perceived need. The results of the study indicate that being uninsured is largely a matter of having a higher socioeconomic status and being a non-minority. Perceived health, cost, gender, and perceived need were not shown to have a significant relationship with the dependent variable, private health insurance coverage.

No description available.

This dissertation comprises three main chapters, book-ended by an introduction and a concluding chapter. Chapters 2 and 3 examine the impacts of health insurance programs in the Philippines and Indonesia on healthcare utilization, healthcare expenditures, and health outcomes. Chapter 4 then examines the age-related trajectories of health-related quality of life of Canadians with diabetes. In Chapter 2, we examine the impact of the national health insurance program of The Philippines on maternal and health outcomes among poor mothers. We find that the program is associated with greater likelihood of prenatal care visits, facility-based birth delivery, and post-natal care, and the impact is most pronounced among the poorest women, but we do not observe improvements in birthweight. In Chapter 3, we evaluate the impact of Jamkesmas, the largest subsidized health insurance in Indonesia, on healthcare utilization, health outcomes, and healthcare expenditures. We find that Jamkesmas is associated with higher probability of using outpatient care and inpatient care and lower out-of-pocket healthcare expenditures, but no significant impact on catastrophic healthcare expenditures and health outcomes. In Chapter 4, we characterize the age-related-trajectories of health-related quality of life of Canadians with diabetes. We find that women and low-income individuals with diabetes experience a lower health-related quality of life trajectories, but there is no evidence that the rate of deterioration of their health-related quality of life is faster than their counterparts without diabetes. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This dissertation consists of three essays in Applied Econometrics that seek a better understanding of different aspects of risk and risk management tools. The first essay is about mortality risk in Virginia coal regions. With a focus on the mortality of non-malignant respiratory diseases (NMRD), I estimate the impact of living in a coal county and find that coal-mining county residency significantly increases the probability of dying from NMRD. This statistical association is accentuated by surface coal mining, high smoking rates, lower health insurance coverage, and a shortage of doctors. The second essay evaluates the cost of a price risk management tool called futures hedging. A variety of measures illustrate considerable changes in hedging costs over time. Quantile regression results show that substantial price volatility and high margin requirements are the main factors driving high hedging costs from 2007 to 2013. The third paper investigates a health risk management tool, a public health insurance program in China called New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS). I apply contract theory to characterize local governments' selective incentives in NCMS benefit designs. Empirical analysis of China Health and Nutrition Survey data indicate challenges of financial sustainability of this scheme in poor regions. The NCMS plan tends to under-cover the services that are moderately predictable and negatively correlated with plan profits, such as outpatient treatments. Preventive services are generally over-provided, perhaps due to the incentive to attract healthy participants. / Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation uses quantitative analysis to investigate three economic problems related to different aspects of risk. The first question is, what affects the respiratory health of Virginia coal mining counties' residents? Using respiratory mortality as the variable of interest, this paper finds that surface coal mining, high smoking rates, and lack of health access jointly contribute to the elevated risk of dying from respiratory diseases in our study area. The second research problem is about a price risk management tool called "hedging": purchasing contracts in the futures market to offset price movements in the cash markets. Based on historical data of corn and soybeans, I simulate the cost of hedging and find this risk management tool is not cheap, especially in 2007 to 2013. The high cost is mainly due to substantial price fluctuations in the recent decade. As a health risk management tool, health insurance is the focus of my third study. In China rural areas, a public health scheme aimed to reduce a resident's risk of suffering medical impoverishment by spreading the risk over residents in a county. County governments were relatively free to design the implementation and benefit plans. This study reveals that most New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) benefit plans are not efficient to achieve the scheme's objective. Facing high risk of fund deficits, local insurance programs in poor regions are likely to under-cover health services, such as outpatient treatments. If this scheme were allowed to charge higher prices from high-risk enrollees instead of a flat-rate premium, its efficiency might be improved.

Recent data show that immigrant women in the U.S. are generally in poorer health than U.S.-born women and immigrant men , and many immigrant women encounter some difficulties in obtaining health care assistance, such as health insurance. Yet American researchers are only beginning to make a contribution to this area of scholarship. This thesis examines in detail the health status of immigrant women, the means by which immigrant women obtain health insurance, and several factors that are likely to influence their health care access. I mainly examine the associations between three factors (public policy, employment status, and marital status) and access to health care assistance. I do so because employers and government-sponsored health care programs are both major insurance providers, and being married is an important factor in accounting for immigrant women's health insurance coverage. The project consists of case studies in three states — California, Florida and New York — using both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The data come from two rounds of the National Survey of America's Families (NSAF 1997 and NSAF 1999) and documentation of welfare reform rules. The results of this study demonstrate that all three factors contribute to immigrant women's health insurance coverage and that anti-immigrant sentiments are inadequate for explaining immigrants' health care circumstances. / Master of Arts