title: Health insurance trends are contributing to growing health care inequality.
abstract: A health plan chief medical officer comments on several trends underscoring the conclusion reached by Robert Hurley and colleagues that disparities in health care are widening. Growing use of new technology is driving up premiums, increasing the ranks of the uninsured and underinsured. Cost shifting by hospitals because of inadequate public program reimbursements drives premiums even higher. Although disparities in health care can never be eliminated, access to essential services can-and must-be made universal. That goal can be accomplished if insurance coverage is mandated and responsibility for its cost is spread broadly.
authors.affiliation: Blue Shield of California, San Francisco, USA. eric.book@blueshieldca.com
authors.forename: Eric L
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Book
mesh_terms: D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D007348:Insurance, Health / Q000191:economics / Q000639:trends*; D014481:United States; D019472:Universal Health Insurance