ABSTRACT
The term access to healthcare focuses on the ability of individuals, groups, and communities to obtain needed medical services. This chapter provides an overview of key economic concepts that can be used to analyze ongoing policy issues. As a healthcare provider, the information will equip us to advocate for effective policies that produce the population-based benefits in a fiscally responsible manner, while mitigating as many of the unintended consequences as possible. To understand the issues that shape health insurance coverage patterns, and the impacts of alternate solution strategies, the chapter examines the logic of the decisions and empirical evidence on the impacts of government policies. To understand policy options for increasing proportions of Americans with insurance coverage, the chapter examines demographic characteristics associated with uninsurance, and considers a study that estimated the likely impacts of three policy strategies for helping those individuals gain coverage. The chapter also examines associations between demographic characteristics and lack of health insurance from two perspectives.
