National Medical Care Utilization and Expenditure Survey (NMCUES) Series B, Descriptive Report No. 12. Access to Medical Care in 1980

摘要

The 1980 National Medical Care Utilization and Expenditure Survey (NMCUES) collected data on the use of and expenditures for health care services from a randomly selected household sample panel representative of the civilian noninstitutionalized population. The panel consisted of 6,600 households (17,900 persons). Data collection was conducted from February 1980 through April 1981 and consisted of five rounds of interviewing. In addition to the use of and expenditures for health care services, data were collected on sample persons' demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, health status, employment, and health insurance coverage and sources of care. Three measures of access to care were used in the report: (1) possession of health insurance coverage, (2) having a regular source of medical care, and (3) time of travel to and waiting in the regular source of care. The salient findings of the report are: about 12.0 percent of the civilian noninstitutionalized population (26.1 million person-years) had no health insurance coverage; about 13.8 percent of this population reported 'no regular source of medical care' in 1980; about 17 percent of the population required over 30 minutes to reach their regular source of care and 50 percent reported waiting over 30 minutes in the waiting room.